Activity Report 213
AEIP ACTIVITY REPORT – WORD OF THE PRESIDENT
2013 has been a remarkable year for the European Association of Paritarian Institutions of Social Protection.
In 2013 AEIP updated its priorities and identified the most important dossiers to focus on. As for pensions, AEIP decided to focus its efforts on the impact of the European Semester on the design of the national pension systems; the developments in the EU coordination of social security systems. AEIP also committed to preserving the different EU occupational pensions models, without being imposed a one-size-fits-all solvency framework, inspired by Solvency II, and to work on the review of the IORP directive and the EU’s initiatives linked to the long-term financing of the European Economy.
Within the healthcare field, AEIP updated its priorities, i.e. collecting evidence-base that paritarian health care schemes help improving the overall efficiency level of health coverage and are necessarily complementary to State schemes, as well as demonstrating that investment in prevention has a major (positive) economic impact.
As for paid holidays for the workers of the construction sector, the Association decided to keep focussing on European initiatives with the aim of ensuring that the trend towards liberalization of services within the EU internal market guarantees fair terms of competition as well as social rights of workers.
As for the health & safety field, AEIP decided to focus its efforts on the improvement of adequate training of OSH-coordinators in the construction industry in the EU and to strengthen the EU-companies access to relevant OSH-professional support.
In 2013, AEIP also secured continuity for its visibility within the European institutions with the reappointment of its Secretary General within the OPSG of EIOPA and with the presence of its Director within the European Commission’s Pension Forum.
As mentioned above, 2013 has been a remarkable year for AEIP. But challenges lie ahead: the challenge for the sustainability of our welfare systems; the ageing of our population and all the difficulties that come with it; the need for securing skilled and abundant labour force today and in the future; the push for applying solvency-II like regulation to not for profit pension funds still pose a threat to the paritarian model. More in general, the risks of undermining paritarian schemes could occur through the interference of several divergent interests and of actors, including the States.
We might sometimes feel distant from each other due to the different social benefits we provide, being challenged by national issues that we might consider unique. In fact, we do have a lot in common. And we do have a lot to share because some of these challenges are the same. These are all challenges that need to be conquered today, if we want to guarantee an equitable, adequate and sustainable social protection for the future generations. With these perspectives we are confident the paritarian model will strive in the future.
With these perspectives we are confident the paritarian model will strive in the future.