Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-04-12-Speech-3-282"
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"en.20000412.10.3-282"2
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"Mr President, I would like to start by paying tribute to Mr Kuckelkorn, because he has drafted a courageous report in my opinion, given Germany’s rigid and inflexible pension situation. He clearly wants to take steps towards developing a European internal market for supplementary pension schemes. I think he deserves tribute for this.
I myself come from a country where a very extensive second pillar of supplementary pensions exists. Almost 90% of the professional population in the private sector are in pension schemes which guarantee a wage-related pension. This also includes small and medium-sized businesses.
With a capacity of over EUR 150 billion, the pension fund of Dutch civil servants is the largest institutional investor of its kind within the international capital market. Pension funds in the Netherlands are daring to take increasing risks in their investments. In 1999, nearly half of the pension money was invested in shares, albeit under strict prudential conditions. But the average return over the past five years has been around 15%, instead of the usual 4%.
It has been shown that it is precisely the compulsory nature of participation in collective pension funds which encourages these excellent results. The fact that funds are spread over generations and risks means that the funds can invest in shares to such a high level. On balance, this yields a far better return for individual members, much better than they could ever achieve on their own via a savings plan or investment fund. Therefore, I must open Mrs Kauppi’s eyes and disprove her reasoning that individual workers would be better off making their own choices, even if they belong to the fortunate ones who do not have any hereditary diseases, who are young and male, because, unfortunately, Mrs Kauppi, we women are even worse off under individual schemes as we live longer than men on average.
Consequently, I would strongly discourage you from formulating a principle of free choice at European level. If I were you, I would leave this to the Member States and the free market.
As for biometric risks, other speakers have already talked enough about this. I fully endorse Mr Kuckelkorn in this respect and would argue that such a definition is very important because we are expecting a number of additional directives from the European Commission."@en1
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