Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-07-03-Speech-2-116"
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"en.20010703.7.2-116"2
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".
Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur, my colleague Mr Karas, for the time and the effort he has put into this report. As draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities, I would primarily like to stress the importance of respect for the principle of equality between men and women – which is laid down in the Treaty – by institutions for occupational retirement provision, upheld, moreover, by the directives on equal treatment in public and professional social security systems. I am pleased to underline the fact that my ad hoc amendment has been adopted and is included in the report.
I also tabled an amendment specifying that the institutions for occupational retirement provision should take into account careers that have been atypical or interrupted owing to family responsibilities of both men and women by also providing solutions to guarantee the continuation of membership. This amendment was not retained in the text but, in my opinion, the institutions for occupational retirement provision clearly cannot escape from providing adequate solutions for these situations.
We have had and we will have in the future more epic debates on the question of knowing whether supplementary pensions must include mandatory cover for biometric risks. I am in favour of a pragmatic approach – which was also advocated by Mr Karas – namely that institutions must offer cover for these risks as an option, in the form of, for example, disability pensions and provision for survivors. This will obviously incur a cost, which should not, however, be dependent on gender or an individual health check.
One of the issues which must be resolved in order to establish a genuine single market in supplementary pensions and pension funds is that of providing a tax treatment to avoid the dual taxation of contributions and benefits, as well as the tax exile of pensioners who are trying to avoid paying taxes, but also the mass of bureaucracy involved in the exchange of information and the recovery of taxation between countries. The Commission only tackled this problem in a statement, and not in this directive. Caution is the watchword, do you not think, Mr Bolkenstein?
I therefore believe that it is premature for Parliament to issue an opinion now in favour of a specific model – in this case, the TEE regime – as has been done in the report, albeit only in a recital, given the fact that direct taxes fall within the sovereign affairs of the Member States. Let us wait before issuing an opinion in favour of one particular model in this extremely sensitive area.
Having said this, Mr President, I think that the lights are flickering from the shock of these thoughts…"@en1
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