A Commissioner's philippic

Here is the text of Commissioner McCreevy's speech at today's IPE Awards. He expresses his disappointment in some member states' defective implementation of the Pensions Directive, especially with regards to national investment limits. He describes the Directive as a "harmonising framework" "to allow the best pension fund managers to administer pension schemes across the single market and pension providers to compete fairly on a pan-European basis". He also announced that court cases have been initiated against three member states today - these are probably Slovenia, the UK and Italy. Interestingly, he singles out Liability Driven Investment as a market innovation to better manage risks. Clearly, deficient implementation will not be cut a lot of slack.

The core focus of the speech was dedicated to the third pillar and forthcoming changes in the regulatory environment as well as existing challenges in the marketplace, such as insufficient availability of annuity products. (More from IPE)