By Boriana Goranova & Santiago Calvo Ramos This Economic Brief analyses the effects of the expected population ageing on the public expenditure on health care in the EU, discusses the different policy options and finally describes the activities in this field by the European Commission. Get the report here
European financial watchdogs have warned that the war in the Middle East and fast-growing private finance markets could increase risks for the EU financial system. The European Supervisory Authorities — the European Banking Authority (EBA), the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) — said geopolitical tensions could affect financial markets through higher energy prices, inflationary pressures and weaker economic growth, ESMA announced on Tuesday. They said they had previously warned about the...
According to a report from Euronews, full gender equality across the European Union remains a distant prospect, estimated to be at least five decades away. This outlook persists despite acknowledged advancements in women's representation in leadership and a narrowing pay gap. A primary area of concern is the disparity in pension benefits. Data from 2024 indicates that the average pension for women aged 65 and over in the EU was one quarter lower than that for men. This gap was...
Women aged 65 or over in the EU received pensions that were 24.5% lower on average than men in 2024. The biggest average pension gaps were recorded in Malta (40.3%), the Netherlands (36.3%) and Austria (35.6), Eurostat informed on Wednesday. The smallest gaps were in Estonia (5.6%), Slovakia (8.4%) and Hungary (9.6%). Alongside averages, the data also compares pensions using the median — the middle value in a range — which is less affected by a small number of very high or...
EU finance ministers meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, 17 February 2026, are again returning to an old problem with new urgency: how to persuade Europeans to move more of their household savings out of bank deposits and into longer-term investment, and how to do so across borders in a fragmented financial system. The discussion sits under the European Commission’s “Savings and Investments Union” (SIU) banner, which is presented as the successor framework to the long-running Capital Markets Union project. In...
By Commission European Pensions are the main source of income for older people in Europe, coming mostly from 'pay-as-you-go' public schemes. Retired people drawing a pension are a significant and — due to demographic ageing — a growing part of the EU population (about 124 million, or a quarter of the total population1). European pension systems are facing the dual challenge of remaining financially sustainable and being able to provide Europeans with an adequate income in retirement. The key purpose of...
The European Commission has today adopted a package of measures to help citizens secure adequate income in retirement by improving access to better and more effective supplementary pensions. The proposed actions aim to complement - not replace - public pensions, which are the foundation of pension systems in all Member States. Today's package forms part of the Commission's Savings and Investments Union (SIU) Strategy which seeks to create more opportunities for households to build their wealth through capital markets, while...
A pension system crisis is looming in the European Union. As their populations age, EU countries must address their often alarmingly high levels of unfunded public pension liabilities, which typically vastly exceed countries’ gross public debt levels (Figure 1). These liabilities are calculated from current life expectancies, effective retirement ages and pension benefit levels. Many, if not all, EU governments will in the coming years have to change these pension system provisions and renege on earlier promises made to...
El envejecimiento de la población y las bajas tasas de natalidad están poniendo presión sobre el modelo de pensiones europeo que depende en gran medida del Estado. En Italia, Alemania, Francia y España … las pensiones públicas representan más del 70% de los ingresos de los jubilados frente a aproximadamente el 40% en Reino Unido y EEUU. Además, los países enfrentan problemas cada vez más grandes en cuanto a la sostenibilidad de la deuda y la UE necesita aproximadamente 1 Bn€ de...
By Pensions For Purpose Across Europe, pension funds manage over €3tn in assets, yet only roughly 0.12% is allocated to venture and growth capital (VC). Meanwhile, VC investment in Europe totalled €15bn in 2023. These numbers together highlight two persistent questions: can allocation to VC be compatible with the fiduciary duties of pension funds? If so, why has the historical aggregated allocation of pension funds to this asset class been so modest? To address these questions, we embarked on a journey...
