Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-02-10-Speech-2-329"
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"en.20040210.13.2-329"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner Diamantopoulou, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking the Commissioner for her detailed and encouraging answer. There has been a substantial rise in awareness of demographic ageing and its impact on the jobs market and social policy in the EU.
Europe faces an enormous challenge in this area. On the one hand, it is confronted with the possibility of failing to meet targets set at the Lisbon Council in the areas of employment, competitiveness and economic growth by 2010. At the same time, health care systems must achieve the three-pronged aim of health care access for all, higher levels of quality provided by these services and the financial viability of systems. There is, moreover, enormous pressure on Member States’ social security systems to meet and to guarantee, in the future, the provision of pensions to an increasingly aged population. The time has come, therefore, to take action.
We are aware that the complex implications of the ageing of the population, along with low birth rates, cannot be solved on an exclusively national level. These problems affect different Community policies, so what is needed is to develop Europe-wide cooperation. The first issue that therefore arises is to know in what way the Commission will be able to support Member States to provide adequate responses to the ageing of the population, either at health systems level or at employment policy level.
The conclusions of the task force chaired by Wim Kok suggest various measures that may be adopted to maintain economic growth and to promote active ageing. A legislative and financial framework must be drawn up that might include such key measures as encouraging employers to hire and retain older workers, discouraging people from leaving the labour market early and increasing participation in life-long training.
In addition to the questions raised by Mr Bushill-Matthews, whom I congratulate for his question to the Commission, I should like to address the question of working women. The increase in the contribution of women to the labour market is a further response, but one which requires measures to be adopted that make it easier to reconcile working life and family life. I would ask the Commission, and especially Commissioner Diamantopoulou, whether it is in a position to develop the mechanisms required to draw up a framework directive establishing a lowest common denominator on reconciling working life and home life."@en1
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