The Netherlands’ new Financial Assessment Framework (FTK) is facing further delays and will not be reviewed in Parliament before the summer, Jetta Klijnsma, state secretary for Social Affairs, has confirmed to IPE sister publication FD-IPNederland.

Due to the latest delay, the scheduled full introduction of the financial rules on 1 January 2015 is no longer feasible, Klijnsma said.

At present, the Raad van State, the highest legal college in the Netherlands, is still assessing the legal ramifications of the draft legislation.

Its views were expected a week ago.

Previously, the state secretary hinted that she would propose the introduction of only parts of the new FTK on 1 January.

Last week, Roos Vermeij, MP and spokeswoman on pensions for the labour party PvdA, acknowledged that the reading of the FTK proposals was unlikely to take place before Parliament’s summer recess.

“The review will be held in the autumn,” she said, noting that the Senate also needed to approve the bill.

However, Vermeij added that she still expected the full proposals to be presented to Parliament before this summer.

The details of the draft legislation – including any changes relative to previous proposals – remain unknown.

However, given that Klijnsma has advocated the introduction of at least parts of the FTK on 1 January, the sector has assumed the new framework will differ little from the current FTK. Otherwise, the deadline for implementation would be far too tight, experts say.

They have suggested a partial FTK introduction could be achieved by exempting pension funds from applying rights cuts in 2015, for example, following a funding shortfall in 2014.

Last year, the Pensions Federation argued that the introduction of new legislation of the FTK’s scale and scope would require a full year.

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