EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM
1.CONTEXT OF THE IMPLEMENTING ACT
Member States shall report to EIOPA their national provisions of prudential nature relevant to the field of occupational pension schemes, which are not covered by the reference to national social and labour law in Article 20 (1). This is in accordance with Article 20 (11) of Directive 2003/41/EC as amended by Article 4 (5) of Directive 2010/78/EUof the European Parliament and of the Councilof 24 November 2010 (Omnibus I). The reported information should be regularly updated and made available on EIOPA’s website.
In order to ensure a uniform way of reporting EIOPA was required to develop implementing technical standards on the procedures, formats and templates to be used by the competent authorities when transmitting and updating the relevant information to EIOPA.To ensureease of access and comparability of the information transmitted, thetemplate list in the technical standards corresponds to the relevant provisions of Directive 2003/41/EC. The template also facilitates the reporting of national prudential provisions which are not captured in the list in a separate field titled “Other”.The uniform approach to reporting provided by the template helps to achieve the objectives set by Article 20(11) in an effective and efficient way by providing a clear overview on the variety of national provisions of prudential nature relevant to the field of occupational pension schemes across EEA countries. Distinctions have been made when it comes to different provisions being applied to different structural types of IORPs as well as to the different territorial extent of the reported provisions. The casesof Article 4 IORPs (i.e. business of occupational retirement provision of insurance undertakings which are covered by Directive 2002/83/EC) havealso been considered and addressed in the template. In order to minimize costs, the template should be delivered in an electronic format. The structure and the format of thetemplate enable reporting in an easy and transparent way.
On the procedure,the proposalrequires an initial transmission of the information and imposes the obligation of an annual update. Competent authorities may update the information on national provisions of prudential nature between reporting dates on a voluntary basis
2.CONSULTATIONS PRIOR TO THE ADOPTION OF THE ACT
An open consultation was conducted by EIOPA in the development of this proposal. A summary of the public submission can be found on EIOPA’s website[1].
The responses received were for the greater part supportive of the proposedprocedures, templates and formats.
EIOPA’s Occupational Pensions Stakeholder Group provided its opinion which is also available on EIOPA’s website[2].
In addition EIOPA carried out an internal test exercise among members of the EIOPA Occupational Pensions Committee (OPC) representing different legal systems in order to assess accurately the clarity and feasibility of the proposed draft ITS and the impact on competent authorities.
3.IMPACT ASSESSMENT
The proposal is accompanied by an impact assessment. The impact assessment analyses have been carried out by EIOPA and are also included in the Annex 1 of the Final report[3].
4.LEGAL ELEMENTS OF THE IMPLEMENTING ACT
Article 20(11) of Directive 2003/41/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 3 June 2003 on the activities and supervision of institutions for occupational retirement provision as amended by Article 4 (5) of Omnibus I empowers the Commission to adopt, following submission of draft standards by the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), and in accordance with Article 15 of Regulation No (EU) 1094/2010, implementing technical standards regarding the procedures to be followed and the formats and templates to be used by competent authorities when transmitting and updating the national provisions of prudential nature relevant to the field of occupational pensions schemes which are not covered by the reference to national social and labour law in Article 20(1) of Directive 2003/41/EC (hereinafter “national prudential provisions”).
The draft ITS sets the procedures to be followed and formats and templates to be used by the competent authorities when transmitting and updating the relevant information to EIOPA.
Article 1 defines the subject matter of the implementing act.
Article 2 sets the requirements competent authorities shall fulfil when reporting information to EIOPA regarding national prudential provisions, indicating the timeline for such obligations.
Article 3 sets the obligation to competent authorities to, when reporting the relevant information to EIOPA, use the template attached in the Annex to the draft technical standards. Such annex provides the specific details of the information required.
5.BUDGETARY IMPLICATION
The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority will bear the costs of collecting and publishing the information on its website.
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