AEIP welcomes the European Parliament’s proposed amendments for a directive harmonizing certain aspects of insolvency law
Today, the European Association of Paritarian Institutions (AEIP) published a statement expressing appreciation for the recent draft report and amendments by the JURI Committee and the opinion by the ECON Committee of the European Parliament on the proposal for a directive harmonizing aspects of insolvency law.
In this input, we reiterate our position that the original European Commission proposal lacks sufficient protection regarding employees’ labour and social security rights. Therefore, we support the recent amendments from the JURI Committee of the European Parliament, which introduce adequate safeguards for employees’ rights.
AEIP highlights that this directive must ensure that employees are effectively treated as creditors. In particular, the legislative text should adequately protect members and beneficiaries of pension schemes in the event that a sponsoring undertaking becomes insolvent. We point out that, in an insolvency procedure, pension premium claims must remain collectible and enforceable. Since unpaid pension contributions are part of the employment contract, they should be transferred to the new owner. Such protections are key to preventing the costs of unpaid pension obligations from falling on pension funds as well as their members and beneficiaries.
The draft report and amendments by the JURI Committee propose important safeguards for creditors of pension obligations, and ensure that their rights and priority wage claims are respected in pre-pack proceedings.
To read our full statement, please see here.