Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-15-Speech-3-177"
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"en.20001115.8.3-177"2
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"Mr President, thank you, Mr Della Vedova. The Commission brought up the issue at the time and the Lisbon European Council accepted the need to analyse in depth the problem of the ageing of the population in Europe. In fact, with the Commission’s cooperation, the Economic Policy Committee has been working on this topic for the last few months. At the last Ecofin council meeting, a report by the Economic Policy Committee was presented which, in general terms, highlighted the fact that there is a problem of ageing in general in Europe, but not exactly the same in all countries. There are very important differences in countries such as Ireland, for instance, which has a very young population and which still has room for an increase in the activity rate compared with countries with higher activity rates and older populations.
The report emphasises the fact that the reforms carried out so far in the social security systems are helping to improve the situation. It also emphasises that national debt reductions, insofar as they can reduce future deficits, may help to resolve the situation. In the medium term, I can tell you that the situation over the next twenty years will vary from country to country, but it will mean an extra 2% to 7% increase in government deficit, depending on the characteristics of each country. Nonetheless, these two elements will not be enough to deal with the problem.
As for the solution that can be adopted, it will, of course, be a national decision to be made in each of the Member States; the Commission will not make any proposals in this regard. At the moment the impression I have is that the formulas being used in the various Member States are moving in three directions. First they are moving towards a search for some system for financing the pay-as-you-go schemes, which may mean some element of pre-funding; I mentioned the Dutch system before, which already has obvious pre-funding elements. They are also moving towards making a public pay-as-you-go scheme compatible with private pre-funding schemes, and of course they are also compatible with support for the setting up of specific investment funds, which may obtain long-term tax advantages and may help to deal with the ageing problem. But, in the end, it will be each Member State’s own decision that prevails, because, as I have said before, this matter is the responsibility of each one of them."@en1
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