Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-12-15-Speech-5-025"

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"en.20001215.2.5-025"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the most important part of this report is where it calls on the Commission to table a proposal for a directive, implementing Article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty, which would make discrimination on the grounds of age impossible. Discrimination does exist. There are countries in the European Union whose national health services will no longer pay for operations on people above a certain age, as if to say what use is this operation to this old person now? In many cases rehabilitation following illness is no longer available to old people under the national systems. This is discrimination on the grounds of age. There is one Member State whose parliament has discussed whether voting rights should not be removed from the over seventies. The debate is over now, but this was discussed. In all of the Member States there are laws which quite simply forbid people above a certain age from working. This is discrimination on the grounds of age. Please do not come to me with the popular cry: "But surely, then, we are taking away jobs from young people". That reminds me of the debate in the sixties about keeping us women out of the labour market. Then, people also said that women must not work so that the men could. This was the line of argument taken by the unions for a long time. And they are still banging the wrong drum today. Can we not please finally put a stop to this! Almost all of the speakers have mentioned the "ageing workforce". Mr Blokland has even spoken of ageing and greying. One colleague has said that it is not we who are living for too long, it is not our society which is too old, but that centuries ago people had to die much earlier than the good Lord had preordained in our genes. 110 or 120 years is quite right! Over the last 100 to 150 years we have experienced the greatest social revolution of all time, for our human life span has doubled. We have been given a second life. 150 years ago, our average life expectancy was 40 years; today it is 80 years. A girl born today is likely to live for 100 years or more. We should not call this ageing or even “greying”. Stop using these words, because that really is discrimination. The future of all of you is old age. I would advise you to make provisions for your future!"@en1
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