Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-01-14-Speech-2-277"
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"en.20030114.8.2-277"2
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"Mr President, we shall not be voting for this report as the rapporteur insists on the need for financial viability, which basically means that we have to restrict the level of spending in advance. Beyond that, however, how can we talk about the future of health and care for the elderly without raising the problem of pensions? On the pretext of modernisation, numerous governments within the Union are increasingly attacking pensions and current and future pensioners.
In France, just over the past fifteen years, following various reforms, the level of pensions has decreased by some 30%. How, therefore, could working-class pensioners, who, even as employees, received insufficient salaries, survive this permanent reduction in their purchasing power without it affecting their health and quality of care?
The report emphasises prevention. The first step in prevention, however, is guaranteeing acceptable living conditions for pensioners. We need not only to halt the reduction in the level of pensions, but we also need to ensure that, for all those who have worked their whole lives, retirement does not mean a reduction in their purchasing power. We must not accept being told that this is impossible and that the ratio of people of working age to those of non-working age does not allow it. The problem is not this ratio between people of working and non-working age, but the ratio between the considerable profits of large companies, the ever-increasing income of the wealthier classes, and the constantly decreasing income of employees, both when working and as pensioners. In order to guarantee dignity for pensioners, we must agree to dip into these profits or the income of the wealthy."@en1
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