I seem to recall reading somewhere that occupational pensions are pretty uncommon in most of Europe - can anyone confirm or deny this?

I had a look at this a while ago and as best as I could work out we're probably currently slightly lower than the average across the EU.

You have to factor in that comparisons are very tricky as you say - you can't just take a figure because costs of living in Poland or Hungary v (for example) France or Sweden are completely different, and there are other benefits in kind and different eligibility rules going on (as well as very varied private pension tax arrangements, different public sector deals etc etc).

When the triple lock was brought in, they were scandalously low so it's kind of worked to force them up to a mediocre kind of level.

I am no expert, I just looked at a few websites, some pensions nerds might tell you I'm talking balls.

Lowest in the G7 and Western Europe.