On Tuesday 19 June, the ambassadors of the member states to the EU (Coreper) gave the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU a mandate to negotiate the legislative proposal for a controlled quality label for pan-European personal pension products (PEPP).
There are very few changes to note compared to the previous compromise version, which was detailed in an earlier edition of EUROPE (see EUROPE 12043). The text was subjected to a silent procedure at the Council working group, which was broken on 14 June by five countries requesting a discussion on including institutions for occupational retirement provision (IORP) on the list of authorised providers.
The new compromise text now proposes authorising IORPs, which will be permitted under national law to provide personal pension products. There will be limits on their assets and liabilities corresponding to their PEPP activities.
To respond to concerns of various member states over equal competition conditions, the text also specifies that IORPs offering PEPP products will not be authorised to cover the biometric risks themselves, but may only do so in cooperation with insurance companies.
Inter-institutional negotiations may begin once the European Parliament has adopted its position.
The text is available at: https://bit.ly/2ys3HsT. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)