Employee Benefit Plans in Europe: A Fragment or a Vehicle of Social Protection?

Employee benefit plans occupy a special place in systems of social protection. Traditionally tied to work for an employer in a company, they provide a form of social protection which can be fairly described as fragmentary. That is to say, the rights they carry vary hugely from one employer to another or from one category of employees to another. This observation seems to hold true when we compare the position in various European countries. A certain movement towards harmonization now appears to be emerging, however, under the joint influence of greater European integration and the huge push for reform coming from the authorities in the various countries, aimed at giving people access to arrangements offering supplementary social protection. Not that the actual rights obtained through the employer are becoming standardized; it is rather that supplementary cover provided by or through the employer is being extended or made secure. The main concern of this paper is to identify the various legal approaches being used in Europe to attain this objective, and the difficulties encountered.