Introduction

In 2003, the European legislature issued a directive on the activities and supervision of institutions for occupational retirement provision (IORPs). A pension institution that qualifies as an IORP under the directive may, based on the supervision carried out in the Member State in which it is established, provide cross-border pension services (i.e. it has an IORP Passport). The IORP Directive sets a number of general solvency and financing requirements, certain investment rules (based on the prudent person principle) and general administrative and governance requirements (in particular regarding the provision of information). These general rules provide for minimum harmonization of pension entities, allowing the Member States a considerable degree of freedom to elaborate the rules on the IORP in question at national level. Consequently, this also leads to some significant differences between IORPs in different Member States. The IORP Directive of 2003 (‘IORP I Directive’ or ‘IORPD I’) has been subject to revision, and the recast directive (‘IORP II Directive’ or ‘IORPD II’) has been published in 2016 and came into force in January 2017. The Member States should have implemented the IORPD II into national law and regulations by 13 January 2019.

Given the extent of the entire pension assets that are invested, IORPs, together with other financial institutions, such as, for example, banks and insurers, play an important role in financing the European economy as well as in the functioning of the European Union's capital markets. The driver behind the development of the IORP Directive in the period up to 2003 was partly to regulate the activities of the IORPs in a directive at European level, whilst at the same time strengthening the European cross-border financial market for pension institutions. The IORP Directive was also intended to facilitate the cross-border provision of pensions, partly to facilitate labour mobility in the EU.

In addition, the IORP Directive was also intended to further stimulate the transition to funded retirement provision within the EU to safeguard its future sustainability in the EU Member States. Such provision is ideally suited to be organized in the framework of occupational pension arrangements.