Brussels, 31/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - From the economic, legal and technical viewpoint, there is nothing standing in the way of a European Pensions Service (EPS) to enable European citizens to have easy access to their pension rights across Europe, explains a report on the TTYPE project (Track and Trace Your Pensions in Europe), unveiled on Thursday 26 March at the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) before being handed to the European Commission.
The idea behind setting up a European Pensions Service is to reconcile two political imperatives set by the EU - ensuring that member states have suitable, safe and viable pensions; and encouraging intra-European mobility. The idea was first mooted in a White Paper on pensions by the European Commission in 2012 (see EUROPE 10555) and TTYPE was asked to draw up a project and make recommendations for its implementation.
The project results demonstrate the need to establish an online service to help EU citizens have permanent contact with their pensions bodies wherever they may be in Europe. The idea is to provide updated information, list accumulated pension rights in the different member states and help people make the best financial decisions. The target group is obviously mobile workers, but people who do not have access to any national pensions body will also benefit from such a system.
TTYPE suggests that the system should be designed on three working levels - providing general information about pensions and helping people contact their pension bodies; providing access to personalised information; and producing an overview of the different pension rights. Institutions would have the option of connecting up with one or more of these levels.
The project's conclusions state that the system is feasible because it complies with pensions and confidentiality rules and is technically workable, but support from the European Commission, both in terms of policy and in terms of finance (to produce a costing) seems to be crucial. TTYPE warns that implementation could be complicated and time-consuming and suggests it is set up gradually. Success will be determined by political will, the desire of suppliers and national monitoring bodies to connect up with it, and obtaining a critical mass of participants. (Jan Kordys)