Notes from Europe – Page 6

  • Opinion Pieces

    Letter from Brussels: A welcome day

    July 2012 (Magazine)

    You can almost hear the sound of satisfied occupational pension fund representatives rubbing their hands together at the news that the IORP II Directive has been postponement.

  • Opinion Pieces

    Letter from Brussels: HFT debate hots up

    June 2012 (Magazine)

    The debate in Brussels on high-frequency trading (HFT) is heating up. The main forum is the European Parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee (ECON), which in July will clarify its position with a vote.

  • Opinion Pieces

    EC backing for VC

    May 2012 (Magazine)

    Radical changes in opportunities to invest in venture capital (VC) are emerging via the EU, including in Brussels, where the European Parliament is now vetting a draft Regulation on European Venture Capital Funds. The package aims to make it easier for VC funds to raise capital from across the EU.

  • Opinion Pieces

    Politicians vs pensions

    March 2012 (Magazine)

    Two strongly divergent positions concerning the European Commission’s proposals for a financial transaction tax (FTT) have emerged in Brussels. Pension fund interests vehemently oppose the tax, while other parties, including some members of the European Parliament, take a diametrically opposite view.

  • Opinion Pieces

    Don’t touch Article 18

    February 2012 (Magazine)

    Investment rules for workplace pension funds should not be harmonised at European level. At least, this is the view aired in several responses to the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority’s (EIOPA) call for advice (CfA) document on the revisions to the 2003 IORP Directive.

  • Opinion Pieces

    IORP under pressure

    December 2011 (Magazine)

    The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority’s (EIOPA) call for advice on the subject of revisions to the EU’s 2003 IORP Directive on work-place-based pensions closes on 2 January 2012. It seeks advice on the extent to which the legislative framework should be similar to that for other financial institutions and products.

  • Opinion Pieces

    Building sector pensions

    November 2011 (Magazine)

    The European Association of Paritarian Institution’s (AEIP) is working on a continent and sector-wide pension system for the building industry. Francesco Briganti, director of AEIP’s Brussels office, says it aims to create a sector-wide social scheme that could eventually pool pension contributions. Overall benefits would be the spread of best practice in this vast industrial sector.

  • Opinion Pieces

    Thoughtful ownership

    October 2011 (Magazine)

    Investment managers too often have very little understanding of the businesses in which they are investing, delegates were told at a meeting in Brussels during the launch of a new study on stewardship.

  • Opinion Pieces

    Plenty on the horizon

    September 2011 (Magazine)

    Even without fears of a double-dip recession, the wake of the 2008 crisis is keeping European Commission financial law drafters working hard at the legislative coalface. And that was before European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, warned, early in August, that the sovereign debt crisis was spreading beyond the periphery ...

  • Opinion Pieces

    MiFID II

    July 2011 (Magazine)

    The European Commission is preparing its revision of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID I) that provides harmonised regulation for investment services. MiFID II is due to be published in September 2011, slightly delayed from the earlier deadline of July.

  • Opinion Pieces

    Clearer position on derivatives

    June 2011 (Magazine)

    Powerful forces are pushing both for and against an opt-out for pension funds from central clearing requirements in proposed legislation on market infrastructure, making it anyone’s guess as to the final result. However, the European parliamentary rapporteur’s softening of position must be reasonable grounds for hope.

  • Opinion Pieces

    Defusing Short-Termism

    May 2011 (Magazine)

    The European Commission’s (EC) new green paper, ‘The EU Corporate Governance Framework’, clearly aims to encourage company owners to take a more active role in influencing management.

  • Opinion Pieces

    Meet Ms Active Ageing

    April 2011 (Magazine)

    Pension funds will observe with interest the European Commission’s announcement goal of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing. This is to add two years to the average EU healthy lifespan by 2020. However, achieving healthy, longer lives is not quite as straightforward as it seems.

  • Opinion Pieces

    MEPS rush green paper follow-up

    March 2011 (Magazine)

    Substantial indications of the direction Brussels is likely to take on pension policy are emerging surprisingly early as a follow-up to the Commission’s policy paper of last July.

  • Opinion Pieces

    Language barriers

    February 2011 (Magazine)

    Pensions terminology is a confusing mishmash and needs to be simplified. It is causing problems not just for legislators but for all those who are pushing towards comparability in the finance and pensions industries.

  • Opinion Pieces

    Deficits in focus

    January 2011 (Magazine)

    The EU has now made a significant concession to accommodate the demands made by eight CEE member states and Sweden in August last year for the incorporation of future pension funding shortfalls into national annual budget statistics. Their governments claimed current rules effectively punish them for having made reforms to their pension systems that involved channelling some contributions away from the state system and into private funds.

  • Opinion Pieces

    EIOPA: Mixed feelings

    November 2010 (Magazine)

    The new European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) opens its doors in 2011 with the prospect of greatly increased powers and a fivefold increase in staff in due course. EIOPA replaces the existing Committee of European Insurance and Occupational Pension (CEIOPS), which is one of the three ‘level three’ ...

  • Opinion Pieces

    IAS19 volatility danger

    October 2010 (Magazine)

    Perhaps unsurprisingly, pension fund representative bodies have registered their objection to the International Accounting Standards Board’s (IASB) fair value proposals for defined benefit (DB) pension accounting. There is also backing from two major US organisations and a European one, plus general support by a second European body.

  • Opinion Pieces

    The Commission hides its teeth

    September 2010 (Magazine)

    The authors of the European Commission’s policy paper, ‘Towards Adequate, Sustainable and Safe European Pension Systems’, are clearly aware that solving Europe’s pension challenge is a formidable task. Not only are there the oft-cited demographic problems and injustices to workers who move across national boundaries, but there is also the fragmented nature of member states’ legislative frameworks to consider.

  • Opinion Pieces

    Derivatives

    July 2010 (Magazine)

    Proposals for legislative measures on uncovered, or naked, short selling of securities and the trade in derivatives – two crucial areas in the EU’s wholesale upgrade of financial legislation post-financial crisis – are open to response from interested parties until 10 July.