The EU’s population is ageing rapidly as member states are experiencing persistently low birth rates and a higher life expectancy. According to Eurostat statistics, in 2012 young people (up to 14 years of age) made up 15.6% of the EU population, whereas those over 65 accounted for 17.9% − a figure that is steadily rising year after year. According to the European Commission, it is projected that by the year 2025 more than 20% of Europeans will be aged 65 or over.
In this scenario, pensions are putting increased financial pressure on national budgets, especially with the added strain of the financial and economic crisis. Pensions represent the main source of income for around a quarter of the EU population, and unless Europe delivers on decent pensions now and in the future, millions will face poverty in old age.
To avoid this, the EU and its member states have to work together to help create the right conditions so that more can continue working, which would lead to a better balance between time in work and time in retirement, and to more people being able to save more for their retirement through safe and high-quality complementary savings.
The EU is continuously promoting active and healthy ageing, which entails incentivising the older members of society to remain both socially and economically active, and to lead a healthy and independent lifestyle. Active and healthy ageing benefits not only the elderly, but society as a whole, and this is especially important, given that the proportion of elderly people to the rest of the population is expected to continue to rise in the future.
The EU strives to achieve these goals through specific initiatives, awareness campaigns and even dedicated strands within various funding programmes. On a parallel level, the EU is also responding to what can be described as a societal challenge to the pensions system.
One of the tools implemented in this regard is the European Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI), which is the European Commission’s financial instrument for funding projects that promote a high level of quality and sustainable employment, guarantee adequate and decent social protection, improve working conditions, and combat social exclusion and poverty. Managed directly by the European Commission, EaSI has a budget of almost €919.5m for the programming period 2014-2020.
A call for proposals recently published under EaSI, Promoting the contribution of private savings to pension adequacy, provides support to pension systems by supporting cross-border cooperation of pension and financial service providers as well as relevant stakeholders with a view to raising the quality of supplementary pension schemes and their contribution to secure incomes in retirement.
Through this call for proposals, the European Commission aims to award funds for a project aimed at developing a voluntary quality label for occupational pension schemes, and one or two transnational pilot projects on the conversion of pension schemes and other assets into secure retirement income.
The voluntary quality label could address issues such as coverage of employees, cost effectiveness, mitigation and sharing of risk. The aim of the projects should be to contribute to adequate retirement incomes through promoting quality supplementary pension provision.
The transnational pilot projects should concentrate on the conversion of pension schemes and other assets into secure retirement income flows. These proposals may either focus on asset conversion products or the design of pension schemes retirement income flows.
The call is open to international consortia wherein lead applicants must be non-profit organisations active in private pensions or financial services for retirement provision, while co-applicants can be any type of non-profit organisations, as well as international organisations.
To be eligible for this call, consortia must cover at least five different countries, and projects are expected to contribute towards allowing pensioners across the EU to live their life with dignity, and to be able to maintain a decent standard of living. Activities within the project may include conferences and seminars; training activities; awareness and dissemination actions; actions aiming at the creation and improving of networks and exchanges of good practices; studies, analyses and mapping projects; and research activities. The call for proposals will remain open until 23 December.
For more information about EaSI and other EU-funding opportunities, contact Meusac on 2200 3300 or send an email on [email protected]
Lynn Spiteri
Executive, EU Funding
Meusac