It would be constructive for the EU to set enforceable high standards for pension etc., based on the previous company directed pension plans as long as they providing the best possible security for the employees.

It would obliterate the 'takeover for profits only' which has infested Europe and has decimated the European model of social justice, which the US electorate is finally now realizing it needs.  

Whilst I agree with you in theory, it does actually become difficult in practice. Pensions have become such a nightmare because nobody thought about the long-term consequences of an ageing population thoroughly.

In Britain they are simply not a safe bet due to government legislation that allows companies to plunder the pension fund to pay bonuses etc. And that's not when the government aren't plundering them to cover up shortfall in revenues because they are reluctant to tax the mobile rich at the socially- appropriate rate.

It is all very well mandating best practice, but such expense invariably requires a dependence on the very high-yield investment vehicles which require
"flexible" financial markets which have created such havoc in the employment markets recently.

Fact is, a proper pension needs to be underpinned by tax-revenues, not investment profits, otherwise they are too vulnerable. And that requires a proper taxation programme, which "modern" de-regulating low-tax governments have philosophically set their faces against.

What we want and what the elites feel they can spare are completely different things.

keep to the Fen Causeway