Abstract

The article explores the relationship between supplementary pension schemes and Eu competition and internal market rules considering both the long-standing line of the European Court of Justice's case-law and the specific provisions provided for by Directives 2003/41/Ec and 98/49/ EC. The main argument developed in the paper is that the social protection function performed by supplementary pension schemes at national level is often imbued with a market dimension, giving rise to an inevitable "tension" between the social security and the economic element. EC law, trough the balanced interpretative approach developed by the Court of Justice since the Poucet and Pistre case (1993), opens up a challenging field for exploring forms of virtuous "reconciliation" by the market and social dimensions inherent to the supplementary pensions systems, both at national and supranational level.