The review of the IORP II Directive should be part of a more “comprehensive approach” towards the European Savings and Investment Union, according to European Commission DG FISMA, director, horizontal policies, Marcel Haag.

Haag made the suggestion at an event to launch European Retirement Week yesterday, 25 November, in which he noted that the commission will need to look at the review of IORP II during its next mandate.

The Savings and Investment Union is a new initiative hoping to build on the work of the Capital Markets Union launched in 2014, which aimed to create a single market for capital in the EU.

On the IORP II review, Haag highlighted the “very comprehensive” technical advice provided by the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), which was published last year, and outlined several areas for improvement.

“We think that the IORP II review should be part of a more comprehensive approach towards the Savings and Investment Union. In the context of the IORP II review, we would also have to look into how pension funds can deliver value for members and how we can ensure that,” Haag said.

In addition, he referenced the pan-European personal pension (PEPP) product regulation, another area of pensions regulation that EIOPA has highlighted for improvement.

In September, EIOPA published a paper on the future of the PEPP, outlining the reasons behind its limited uptake and proposed reforms. It set out the authority’s suggested improvements to the PEPP’s design, with the aim of overcoming supply-side, demand-side and structural barriers hindering its broader adoption.

Haag described it as “food for thought” and added that pensions is a “complex issue that is at the crossroads of several policy fields and brings together different policy objectives”.

He continued: “Let me conclude by just saying that the work on this will be at the heart of what our new commissioner for financial services and financial markets will look into as part of the savings and investment union.

“It will be crucial that we ensure that we promote the uptake of occupational and personal pension products,” he said, adding that he also wants to see a “significant part of the savings that European households country hold flow into the real economy and towards more productive and innovative investments”.

---