Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-12-15-Speech-5-023"

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"en.20001215.2.5-023"2
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"Mr President, the Commission communication is, I think, a milestone in the history of social policy because it marks the end of a period in which senior citizens were seen as a generation of outcasts or veterans. The rapporteur, who has examined the subject with a great deal of sensitivity, points out that we need to combat negative stereotypes and consolidate equality between the generations as a basis for a European social model. Thanks to her proposals for an active old age, society is enriched by a whole generation. Encouraging the elderly to take up roles which they can fulfil on a voluntary basis will help overcome the objections of trades union, which view any extension of working life with suspicion. At the same time, the report encourages us to revise other policies designed solely for younger generations and aims to awaken the interest of other age groups by redefining the participation of all ages in local economic and social life and redistributing income between them. This ambitious objective calls for a radical change in practices and the active involvement of the social partners. However, because the elderly do not form a homogenous group, as the communication rightly points out, it is mainly up to the social partners to put forward a system of classification of elderly people which meets modern requirements. It quite rightly combines this policy with the policy for the viability of pension systems. The redistribution of resources implied in the policy to modernise pension systems, an explosive problem, represents a further aim of the new policy for all ages. The proposal to make pension systems dependent upon demographic change in order to create a self-sustaining system is linked to a high level of employment among the elderly. However, extensive early retirement and various graduated terms of retirement presuppose a massive revision of these policies because not all of them are socially inspired. I should like to close with a word on medical care. A quality of life policy depends directly, especially in the case of the elderly, on the quality of medical care. The communication needs to clarify the problem of the increased cost of services from new medical technologies which create new forms of inequality in the face of illness and death."@en1

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