Does it still make sense for a multinational company’s employee benefits plan to deal with 28 different social and tax legislations in the EU?
Does it make sense for a  multinational company to set up as many employee benefits plans as the number of the EU countries in which it operates?

Plausibly, the answer is no. Yet that is exactly what happens in the European Union — and for once, it is unfair to blame the “EU technocrats.”
According to the conclusions of my recent Ph.D thesis, a Pan-European employee benefit plan is legally possible without any need to change the EU Treaties. The actors that could make it happen are the European employers’ federations, European trade unions, and at least nine national governments of the EU.

It is only a lack of political will that stands in the way. But I am not sure that Europe will be able to afford it for very much longer.

Francesco Briganti

Download the full article as published in Global Benefits Vision’s  October 2015 issue here (2Mb PDF file).