European Policy Analysis Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2016 | Page 49

European Policy Analysis

the Commission (EIOPA 2014b) on the
matter, summarizing the stakeholders’
views and—somewhat cautiously, yet
with a subtle agenda; we shall come back
to this in Section 4.2—expressing its own
standpoint on controversial matters. The
Commission, apparently not entirely
satisfied, issued a renewed and this time
very detailed call for advice (European
Commission 2014) in July 2014, asking
EIOPA to conclusively report in February
2016 (which it did not). Table 1 lists
the relevant sections of the latter four
documents as referred to in our analysis
and the following presentation of our
findings.

implement it without harmonization of
national tax legislation” (EIOPA 2013).

Most stakeholders are either
less enthused or more hopeful, with the
extreme positions marked by the following
two (general) comments. The Czech
Ministry of Finance admonishes EIOPA
not to solely focus on the relationship
between sellers and buyers of PPPs, but
to engage more with the intervening role
of member state governments, especially
through taxation (EIOPA 2014a, gen.
com. 19). Furthermore, it states that the
Czech Government is decidedly against
the harmonization of direct taxes within
the EU (EIOPA 2014a, gen. com. 19).15
APFIPP, the Association of Portuguese
Investment Funds, to the contrary, submits
that the “EU PPP would be ideally totally
tax free (both at the vehicle and at the
participant levels)” (EIOPA 2014a, gen.
com. 3). This might indeed constitute the
most elegant way to create a product that
is attractive in all 28 constituent parts of
the common financial market and thus
a significant step in completing it—yet,
it is hardly conceivable that the national
veto players involved would tolerate such
a move, as will become apparent from
the following analysis of stakeholders’
answers to EIOPA’s specific questions on
the matter.

Additionally—(or actually: prior)
to the specific questions addressing
taxation issues (Q 10–15 and Q 22 in
EIOPA 2013)—we considered stakeholder

Topic 1: Taxational Issues

EIOPA’s stance on the issue(s) of
taxation was as clear as it was bold right
from the beginning. In a statement typeset
boxed so that no reader (whom EIOPA
seems to expect to be potentially rather
ignorant of the allocation of competencies
within the EU) should miss it, taxational
adaptations within the process analyzed
here were ruled out: “Please note that
EIOPA and its members do not exercise
any powers in the area of taxation” (EIOPA
2013). And this is exactly why EIOPA
seemed to favor the development of 2nd
tier regulation as more promising than
“passporting” national products for crossborder sale, for the key “advantage of the
2nd regime is that it might be possible to

15

Whereas the Czech Ministry of Finance urges EIOPA to engage more with questions of taxation
given the member state powers and the way they are exercised, Pensions Europe admonishes it for the
same reason to hold its horses: “EIOPA should carefully consider whether it has sufficient powers to
adopt effective policy actions in this field, namely due to its lack of competence in fiscal matters” (EIOPA 2014a, gen. com. 23).

49