The leaders of the European Parliament are considering a new proposal which would increase the power of its president and political groups and decrease the influence of individual members. The paper, submitted by Secretary General Klaus Welle aims to increase the control that political groups have over the legislative process and to decrease the impact
BETTER FINANCE sent a letter to Lord Jonathan Hill, Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, expressing its concerns on the upcoming Capital Markets Union Action Plan and the involvement of retail investors in this initiative. In recent official speeches, European Commission representatives have focused exclusively on the five priorities for the short term already listed in the CMU
BETTER FINANCE is offering a full-time internship for the duration of 6 months. The successful candidate will assist the team with day-to-day office management, administration as well as internal and external communication. Please note we can only accept candidates able to be enrolled in an exchange programme such as the European ERASMUS+ programme! We are looking forward to welcoming an enthusiastic
EFES, the European Federation of Employee Share Ownership and BETTER FINANCE’s member organization, published yesterday a table listing all recent policy decisions regarding employee share ownership in European countries. Its results called for the remarks of Marc Mathieu, Secretary General of the EFES: "The democratization of employee ownership is emerging as a key element of recovery and
The European Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, made proposals to strengthen the role European Citizens’ Initiatives (ECIs) play in democratic political debate at the European level. Among the recommendations are better guidance for ECI organisers, a stronger involvement of the European Parliament and the Council and increased pressure on the Member States to make sure that all
While the beginning of 2014 saw the emergence of an EU-wide cap on bonuses, the rest of the year appears to have been devoted to finding ways around it. Regulatory Technical Standards adopted by the Commission in March 2014 establish that [f]or performance from 1 January 2014 onwards, the variable component shall not exceed 100% of the fixed component of the
IORP stands for Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision. The IORP Directive is designed to create an internal market for occupational retirement provision. The original directive of 3 June 2013 (Directive 2003/41/EC) is now being reworked. The Commission submitted the recast proposal in March last year. Only today, the MEP Rapporteur for IORP II has been
ShareSoc, UK Individual Shareholders Society and member of BETTER FINANCE, published an excellent summary of the key points of the newly published report on the progress of the implementation of the recommendations set in the Kay Review report in 2011. Please find ShareSoc analysis here. The original report by the British Department for Business, Innovation & Skills
Earlier this week Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, unveiled his controversial plan to merge all public sector pension funds. Johnson wants to amalgamate 101 local authority funds together with the rest of the public sector pension schemes and invest the resulting "gigantic sovereign wealth funds" in the construction of infrastructure that UK "is crying out
Whereas at first sight mutual funds are a global success with assets growing seven-fold in two decades (1993 to 2013), mutual fund reveal structural weaknesses potentially rendering them obsolete. Because many fund managers set entry/exit fees too high and because funds are prone to substantial liquidity problems, collective investment schemes could be replaced by cheap,