Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-11-14-Speech-1-273-000"
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"en.20111114.22.1-273-000"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, demographic change is one of the most important themes in our times. For example, we know that every second girl born in Germany today will live to see their 100th birthday. My 13-year-old daughter was happy when she heard this news. However politicians must naturally also respond to this fact, drawing conclusions and establishing general political conditions.
My report, which will be the subject of a vote tomorrow, deals with some of these conclusions and the associated general conditions. It does not deal with social issues such as pensions. This is quite simply beyond the remit of the Committee on Regional Development. What it does consider, however, is the question of what European cohesion policy can do and how we can organise future cohesion policy in order to respond to the pressing issues. I would like to draw attention to four areas mentioned in the report.
Firstly: we need to tailor European cohesion policy more closely than ever to demographic change. Demographic change continues to play quite an important role in the Europe 2020 strategy and in the legislative proposals. Now, as we come to implement the strategy, we must ensure that the topic remains on the agenda.
The second area relates to infrastructure: we need infrastructure suitable to the needs of older people in order to avoid social exclusion. This includes accessibility to public buildings, for example. This move would also benefit other groups, such as families with small children or people with disabilities. At the same time, we need to make areas affected by emigration more attractive, particularly to young families.
The third area relates to older people, children and families. More and more older people live in the various regions of Europe. Regional policy must respond to this fact. For me, this also means promoting so-called multi-generational housing, as well as European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and European Social Fund (ESF) support in the social and health care sectors. Also, when it comes to the prevention of emigration, I believe that well-qualified full-time day care for children plays a very important role. It is a pity that the majority in the committee were not in favour of providing free child care. I would have liked to see much more courage here.
The fourth area of concern is employment. Our prime concern here must be to combat unemployment among women and young people. We have a cohort of young women who are the best-educated generation in Europe of all time. If these women are denied employment opportunities, then we could be accused of being responsible ourselves for creating the shortage of specialist professionals. It is also important that we should make much more use of the knowledge and experience of older people. Appropriate structures must also be established for this purpose in the regions.
I believe we all agree that we need to take an active approach by shaping demographic change rather than just managing it. European regional policy can make a huge contribution here. I would like to thank all the members of the committee who have worked on this report. This has been a long journey and several people have grown old and even retired while the work went on. The result has been worth the effort, however. I think we have produced a good report and I hope that the majority will vote in favour at tomorrow’s plenary."@en1
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