Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-10-Speech-3-201"
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"en.20020410.6.3-201"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, the speech we just heard was in fact an excellent bridge to mine. Mrs Lulling represents my older female colleagues here, whereas I am the youngest female member of the PPE-DE Group. I can fully endorse what Mrs Lulling said in her speech just now. This shows that there is no generation gap in the European Parliament at least.
If the post of EU liaison officer for senior citizens were to be created the rapporteur, our colleague, Carlo Fatuzzo, would be the most likely candidate for the job. I am sure that young people in Finland, at least, would support his election. The way in which he devotes himself to his work is unequalled.
Pleasantries aside, however, Mr Fatuzzo has focused his efforts on defending the interests of senior citizens in Europe. For several decades he has had professional experience of elderly people’s issues, which is also evident from this thorough and very professionally prepared report. The report is based on significant social phenomena. The growth in the number of pensioners, which is due to increased life expectancy and relatively early retirement, will eat away at the funding of the present pension schemes unless essential and sufficiently radical reforms are implemented in good time.
We need solutions at both national and Union level. There are such considerable differences between pension systems in the various Member States that the responsibility for regulating the organisation and funding of statutory pensions must be that of the Member States alone in the future also.
At Union level we can participate, instead, in defusing the pensions bomb by promoting the development of cross-border personal pension and savings schemes. Firstly, these will be sustainable in terms of their financing; secondly, they will provide the capital companies need in the form of investments; and thirdly, they will serve the changing needs of individuals better than universal statutory schemes.
Unfortunately, the Member States are shrinking from making the decisions necessary for all this to come about. The drafting of the directives on the activities and supervision of institutions for occupational retirement provision in particular has been painfully slow. It is hardly far-sighted to bury one’s head in the sand. Like my colleagues, I too urge the Council to face up to the challenges of our population growth at long last and take the necessary decisions, while Spain still holds the Presidency, that would enable institutions that offer supplementary occupational pensions to operate constructively in our internal market.
The guarantee of a secure old age has played a key role in different cultures throughout the ages and all over the world. Care of the elderly is a yardstick of a civilised society. Making the decisions in good time is above all in the interests of the younger generation as every wasted day increases the costs of reform and aggravates the problem."@en1
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