Communication From Europol In Accordance With The Council Decision (Eu) 2015/1889 Of 08 October 2015 On The Dissolution Of The Europol Pension Fund

On 08 October 2015, the Council decided to dissolve the Europol Pension Fund (COUNCIL DECISION (EU) 2015/1889 on the dissolution of the Europol Pension Fund). With this decision the independent pension fund established by the Council Act of 12 March 1999 is dissolved as of 1 January 2016.  The full Council Decision can be accessed in the Official Journal.

The Council Decision foresees in its Article 4 that the remaining assets of the Fund, after deduction of an amount necessary to cover the pension liabilities, will be transferred to Europol. A certain part of this amount will be earmarked, in accordance with Article 4, for the specific purpose of being distributed to the former active participants of the fund or their lawful heirs.   

The individual distributions to the former participants of the Fund will be made in proportion to the total amount of the contributions they respectively paid to the fund during the period they were employed under the Europol Staff Regulations. Europol’s notifications of the individual payments will include technical information on the calculation in each individual case.

At present, it is not possible for Europol to exactly state which former participant will obtain which amount. Furthermore, the distribution of the contribution to the individual entitled staff members can only be made once the audit over the Europol Pension Fund’s closing report is finalised. This is not expected before the end of the 2nd quarter 2016.   

Staff members who have not contributed to the Europol Pension Fund, because they have taken up their post after 1 January 2010 and did not work for Europol before that date, are not eligible for any payment, as they are not participants of the fund.

If you are a former participant of the Europol Pension Fund, the following steps need to be taken in order for Europol to start the necessary proceedings whereas payments from the EC financial system can only be made if in the system a LEF (= Legal Entity Form) ^[1] and BAF (= Bank Account Form) ^[2] is introduced:

• In case you are, or are to become, an active staff member at Europol during 2016 and have been a participant of the Europol Pension Fund, no action is required as your LEF/BAF available to Europol will be used to establish any due payment;
• In case you are a former Europol Staff member Europol, not working for another EU Agency or EU Institution, Europol requires obtaining a LEF/BAF form as well.
• In case you are a former Europol Staff member of Europol, working for another EU Agency or EU Institution, Europol requires obtaining your available LEF/BAFnumber in order to certify its existence.  
• In case you are lawful heir(s) to a former Europol Staff member who has deceased, you need to fill in the LEF/BAF forms and return them to Europol (see section about LEF/BAF underneath).  You also need to provide written proof (certificate of death, notary decree, other) that you are the lawful heir(s) of the former participant and need to have it certified by a notary. Attestations of this kind are accepted in all languages.

The above mentioned documents, as the case may be, should be forwarded to the following email address: C55@europol.europa.eu. You will obtain an acknowledgment of receipt.  Europol might contact you for additional clarifications.  All eligible staff members will, during the 4th quarter of 2016, be provided with a letter indicating the amount to be refunded, the calculation method used, a confirmation regarding the origin of the amount (for attestation and tax purposes), the bank details used and a copy of the closing report of the Europol Pension Fund.  Your email address will be used for this and any other communication.

Europol has no obligation to actively research former active participants of the fund whose contact details communicated to Europol have ceased to be valid, nor any obligation to actively research the heirs of deceased former active participants. Europol would be grateful, however, if former participants reading this communication or being informed by Europol about their eligibility contact other former staff members known to them in order to inform them. 

[1] LEF - Legal Entity Form

[2] BAF - Bank Account Form

All requests for Natural Persons (=LEF) must be accompanied by the following documents: The identification form for a Natural Person duly filled out, dated and signed by the individual; A legible photocopy (recto/verso) of the identity card, passport or other identification document (i.e. for certain countries the driving license, the residence document, the diplomatic passport or the election card are accepted);

All requests for validation of a bank account must be accompanied by the following documents: The financial identification form (BAF) duly completed and signed by the account holder; A recent document (less than 6 months) issued by the bank (e.g.: a bank statement, RIB, a bank certificate, online banking screenshots ...) indicating the name of the bank, the name of the account and the account number/IBAN (if applicable). If such document is not available, a bank stamp (indicating the name of the bank) and the signature of a representative of the bank on the financial identification form could be accepted.