For anyone who thinks Brexit means the UK engaging less with our friends and colleagues across Europe, the meetings I recently attended in Madrid would have provided serious pause for thought.

The occasion was the twice-yearly get-together of PensionsEurope, where we spent a productive day comparing the pensions challenges in our various countries and the solutions to tackle them.

Although the diversity of national pension systems across Europe is pretty amazing, the underlying challenges are the same – increasing longevity, low interest rates and low coverage among groups such as the self-employed. The solutions, too, have common threads, such as a larger role for workplace schemes and better engagement with savers.

What really struck me was the level of interest when one of my colleagues from the PLSA presented on the UK’s experience of auto-enrolment. For a country sometimes portrayed as on the fringe of Europe in so many ways, the UK is widely seen as the shining example to follow when it comes to building up workplace retirement saving. The detailed nature of the questions showed how close an interest many countries are taking and how hard they are thinking about doing something similar.

There is plenty we can learn from our European friends, too. The Swedes, for example, have done great work with their ‘Orange Envelope’ annual statements on state pensions and their recently developed version of a pensions dashboard.

Whatever form Brexit takes, I am sure we will continue pooling knowledge across Europe.

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