Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-02-20-Speech-3-404"
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"en.20080220.17.3-404"2
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"Mr President, the European Union is facing demographic change as never before. By 2030 we will be lacking more than 20 million people of employable age. Two employed people will have to pay for one pensioner. The good news is that people will live longer, and today’s elderly people are healthier than previous generations. The bad news is that the younger generation is too few in number and this will have dramatic consequences for urban planning, the construction of dwellings, the education system and the way work is organised.
We need a more family-friendly environment in our Member States, more childcare choices, more workplace daycare centres, better opportunities for combining family and work, greater participation by women in the working world, more part-time work for parents and a secure return to work after child raising. Above all, we need stable career development paths and sufficient income, because these make it easier for people to want to have children.
We also need significantly greater investment in people, to improve general education and specialist training levels. Lifelong learning programmes should benefit not only young people but also older people, who will want to work for much longer and who can manage a solid workload and are highly skilled and highly motivated.
We should not expect too much of Mrs Castex’s own-initiative report. The legal status of social services of general interest remains controversial. We are against an EU-wide framework directive or binding regulations. Furthermore, company pensions that have been established on a voluntary basis should not be burdened with additional obligations, such as, for example, criteria relating to family policy. This is a question of social security, a question of taxes, and therefore a classic matter for the Member States.
With these considerations and the amendments proposed by the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, the report has become more substantial. With this report, we can hold a discussion of the necessary breadth about the consequences of the dramatic demographic changes."@en1
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