Brussels, 05/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - "It is time to formalise our cooperation on pensions. Increased coordination is needed so we can learn from each other and establish social objectives at European level, and not only economic objectives, for pension schemes. Pensions are a social question with an economic dimension and not the other way round". It was in such terms that Anna Diamantopoulou presented to Parliament the communication on "an integrated approach to the service of national strategies aimed at guaranteeing safe and valid pensions" (see EUROPE of 4 July, p.6). "We foresee a gentle policy compared to models of legislation existing in Member States. (…) This proposal does not take anything away from the responsibilities of national legislators". The Commissioner launched an appeal to the European Parliament for which it gives its opinion on this issue before October. The Commissioner answered questions on:
1. Retirement schemes. (Anne Elisabet Jensen, ELDR, Denmark); Carlo Fatuzzo, (EPP-Ed, Italy): modernisation of the system involving "transparency of information that must be clear and unambiguous for both EU nationals and for third country nationals. Our main challenge is to make this kind of information available".
2. Early retirement (Stephen Hughes, PES, British): the early retirement scheme in the EU raises problems of financing. The retirement age must be raised.
3. Aims of the Communication (Anne van Lancker, ESP, Belgian): We have ten objectives divided into three categories. The balance between the generations is included. The indicators will concentrate ion the social and economic dimensions;
4. Board guidelines for employment (Pila-Noora Kauppi, EPP-ED, Finnish): during the Spanish Presidency, the first round of the strategy for employment (five years) will reach its end. At that time we will see how to tackle the issue of quality of employment;
The Commissioner also specified, with regards to the problems that present themselves to youths in terms of pensions, that there, in fact, exists a danger that they do not enjoy the same rights as the present generation of pensioners. Thus it is necessary to tackle this problem together. With regards to the system of private pensions, our position is clear: it is absolutely out of the questions to want to harmonise these pensions systems. In fact, it would be impossible to want to harmonise the systems structures and financed in different ways. What matters, is that there exists problems that we have in common, namely the demographic ageing, unemployment, the new family model. We want the right mixture between public and private financing for these pension schemes.