Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-23-Speech-2-293"
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"en.20030923.8.2-293"2
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"Mr President, I wish in my speech to focus attention on Mr Jan Andersson’s excellent report on adequate and sustainable pensions. It is good that Parliament is taking an active part in the pensions debate, because pensions and how we pay for them will be one of the biggest social and economic challenges of the decades to come.
Old age these days no longer means poverty, because statutory public pension schemes and the private occupational pension schemes and private insurance policies that supplement them are a guarantee to many Europeans that they can maintain their standard of living even after retirement. The generation gap must nevertheless be narrowed by means of vigorous pension scheme reforms, so that increased pensions do not become a burden on the shoulders of younger generations.
Four factors will jeopardise state pension schemes if no reforms are made. These are the ever-increasing life expectancy rate combined with low birth rates, substantial long-term unemployment and people entering employment late in life. The baby-boom generation is beginning to retire in this decade and by 2050 the number of those in receipt of a pension in relation to those of working age will have doubled. In some Member States pension schemes paid for out of public funds are estimated to rise to one fifth of GNP.
In my opinion, European pension schemes have, in the main, achieved their social goals. To strengthen pension provision, however, the priorities are that the age of retirement must be raised, the range of supplementary forms of finance must be increased, and there has to be an increase in long-term private savings. At Community level we need coordination in the taxation of occupational pensions to make it easier for people to move from one country to another and comprehensive internal market legislation for institutions offering occupational retirement provision. At European Union level we can play a part in defusing the pensions bomb by promoting the development of cross-border personal pensions and savings schemes. I hope that Parliament will, on the strength of this excellent report by Mr Andersson, also play an active role regarding these matters in the future."@en1
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