PensionsEurope has welcomed the European Commission’s (EC) publication of the pension package designed to boost supplementary pensions, and said it remained positive “in principle” on the EC’s recommendations.

The association said the proposed Pension Tracking System (PTS) was a “useful tool” that could enhance individuals’ capacity to plan for retirement, but that the structure and use of PTS should remain the responsibility of the member state.

It added that the scheme should be free for users, and that the cost to pension schemes should be kept low.

On the proposals regarding pension dashboards, PensionsEurope said member states should take into account the “three pillars” of statutory pensions, occupational pensions and private individual pension provisions.

“PensionsEurope believes that a dashboard must offer a forward-looking perspective on the development of pensions across parts of the pension system during the following decades,” it said in a statement.

In addition, PensionsEurope agreed with the recommendations to introduce auto-enrolment and said that this tool can be “very effective” in increasing pension coverage, adding, “successful auto-enrolment must not only achieve broad participation but also ensure that contribution levels are sufficient to provide adequate pensions”.

The association agreed, too, with the EC’s recommendations on tax incentives.

“Financial incentives are a key policy instrument for promoting retirement savings. They are effective in raising retirement savings and helping people diversify their sources of retirement income,” PensionsEurope said.

While emphasising the fact that member states, and not the European Union, are responsible for their own monitoring and reporting frameworks, PensionsEurope said that non-legislative policy tools such as the European Semester had been used “successfully” previously.

It said: “In our answer to the Call for Evidence in March 2025, we stated that auto-enrolment has significant potential to address Europe’s retirement challenges and we encouraged the European Commission to incorporate auto-enrolment into its country-specific recommendations within the European Semester cycle, endorsed by the member states."

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