EN Official Journal of the European Union CE 78/744

(2004/C 78 E/0792)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2494/03

by Christopher Huhne (ELDR) to the Commission

(25 July 2003)

Subject: Pensions

1. Will the Commission estimate the proportion of each Member State's pension age population that is in receipt of some pension based on a funded or private sector scheme?

2. Will the Commission estimate the proportion of each Member State's working age population that is currently contributing to a funded pension scheme whether private or public?

3. Will the Commission estimate how many privately funded pension schemes in each Member State are currently declaring that they are unable to meet their existing obligations at current levels of the financial markets?

Answer given by Mrs Diamantopoulou on behalf of the Commission

(26 August 2003)

The joint report of the Council and the Commission on adequate and sustainable pensions adopted in March 2003 (1) summarises in its table 3 (pages 31-32) information obtained from the Member States' authorities on the importance of private pension provision, mainly through occupational pensions. The table provides for most Member States information on the proportion of employees contributing to private pension schemes and pensioners receiving benefits from such schemes.

Moreover, Eurostat has started collecting data on active, deferred and retired members (2) of autonomous pension funds. The figures below reflect the situation in 2001:

Number of active members Number of deferred members Number of retired persons Belgium 269 835 56 631 67 609 Denmark 11 404 NA 10 337 Germany NA NA NA Spain (2000) (3) 3 928 682 931 940 134 967 Ireland NA NA NA Italy (3) 1 811 022 NA 118 050 Luxembourg NA NA NA Netherlands (2000) 5 140 000 6 247 000 1 968 000 Austria 325 713 NA 39 658 Portugal (3) 283 244 NA 112 813 Finland 75 071 33 665 45 541 Sweden 427 119 339 048 133 620 United Kingdom NA NA NA

The Commission does not have information on the number of privately funded pension schemes in each Member State which would currently be unable to meet their existing obligations at current levels of financial markets. The recently adopted Directive 2003/41/EC of the Parliament and of the Council on the activities and supervision of institutions for occupational retirement pensions, which will come into force two years after its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union, contains a host of prudential provisions to ensure that pension schemes will be able to meet their obligations to their members. It also ensure that an effective system of prudential surpervision be established to the same end.

(1) Available on: http://europa.eu.int/comm/employment_social/soc-prot/pensions/index_en.htm

(2) Number of active members: the number of members who are actively contributing to the pension scheme. Number of deferred members: number of members who have left the pension scheme, but retain deferred rights. Number of retired members: number of persons who receive pension benefits (including widows, orphans, …).

(3) Figures for Spain, Portugal and Italy also contain data for some pension funds of the third pillar, these are personal pension schemes where there is no involvement from the employer.