Read-out of the College meeting by Vice-President Dubravka Šuica

Good afternoon to everybody,

Welcome to our College read-out. We just finished our meeting and I would like to give you a quick overview of the points we discussed, before moving to the Green Paper on Ageing.

Today, the College decided to send an additional reasoned opinion to Poland regarding the continued functioning of the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court.

On 3 December 2020, the Commission sent an additional letter of formal notice to Poland, adding a new grievance to the infringement procedure started on 29 April 2020.

Poland's reply did not address the Commission's concerns. For this reason, the Commission decided to advance the infringement today.

The Commission considers that Poland violates EU law by allowing the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court – the independence and impartiality of which is not guaranteed – to take decisions, which have a direct impact on judges and the way they exercise their function.

These matters include, among others, cases of the lifting of immunity of judges with a view to bringing criminal proceedings against them.   

The mere prospect of having to face proceedings before a body whose independence is not guaranteed creates a ‘chilling effect' for judges and can affect their own independence.

Poland has one month to take the necessary measures to comply with EU law, otherwise the Commission may refer the case to the Court of Justice.

Finally, the European Commission has today decided to appoint Ms Genoveva Ruiz Calavera as Director-General of the Directorate-General for Interpretation. The date of effect of this decision will be determined later.

And with this, let me move on to the file I am presenting to you here today.

Today the college adopted the first Green Paper of this Commission mandate and launches a wide debate and public consultation the challenges and opportunities of Europe's ageing population.

Despite the enormous challenges of the current pandemic, we are living healthier and longer lives. This is in itself a remarkable achievement.

Over the last 50 years, our life expectancy at birth has increased by 10 years. This is quite significant.

But undoubtedly, ageing also poses challenges – to us individually and to society as a whole.

Ageing is not a matter of older people only; it concerns all ages, all generations.

Our entire life-cycle is affected by it, from the day we are born. Therefore, ageing needs to be factored into personal and policy decisions at every age.

This raises many questions on the long-term impacts: for example, on care and pensions.

Are our social protection systems fit to deal with the needs of ageing societies?

How could we foster healthy and active ageing?

What does this mean for young and older people today?

And what does it mean for our economies, for our societies – and for our future?

This Green Paper discusses those topics and raise questions.

It frames the debate on ageing by setting out the speed and scale of the demographic changes in our society.

It also highlights the impact these developments have across our policies and the questions we need to ask ourselves in response.

This covers everything from promoting healthy lifestyles and lifelong learning to strengthening health and care systems to cater for an older population.

Let me illustrate this with some tangible figures: in the EU-27, we expect the number of people that may need long-term care to increase to 23.6 million in 2030 and 30.5 million in 2050.

At the same time, there is a potential of 8 million job openings in the health and care sector in the next 10 years.

 So this Green Paper underlines the need to bring more people into the workforce and highlights the opportunities for job creation.

 It looks at the impact of ageing on our careers, well‑being, pensions, social protection and productivity.

Through the Green Paper we engage in a debate that will help to prepare responses to a number of challenges, such as:

A greater demand for healthcare and long-term care;

Growing difficulties to sustain social protection systems, as the working-age population shrinks; ways to boost productivity and increase labour market participation.

But we are also looking at the positives and opportunities that ageing brings, which are for example:

Ageing is a driver for innovation and the silver economy

There are also opportunities for inter‑generational living and learning, and volunteering.

Tackling these issues is essential to maintain prosperity and to ensure solidarity and fairness among generations.

This will also support our work toward creating stronger, equal and cohesive societies.

The importance of this has been once more highlighted by the current pandemic.

During the coming twelve weeks consultation, we discuss and collect contributions on the impact of ageing - for citizens, whatever their age, and for society as a whole.

The input from the consultation will shape our work in many different ways.

It will inform our efforts in view of ongoing work:

In my portfolio, there are some initiatives in preparation that will draw on this consultation.

These are: the long-term vision for rural areas, the Strategy on the Rights of the Child. As I have mentioned, ageing concerns all ages and we also address children and young adults in this Green Paper.

But also initiatives, in other areas of our Commission work, we will receive input through this initiative.

Beyond those already planned initiatives, this consultation will also provide input to work that is still in early stages or inspire new initiatives and ideas.

So, with this Green Paper today, we launch a multi-dimensional debate on ageing that will inform our work to come in many different areas.  Essentially, in every aspect of our lives, our societies and economies.

It is about our cohesion as a society, how we interact and support one another across generations.

Therefore, we need to engage in forward-looking policy discussions, that take our demographic challenges into account and allow us to learn lessons from crises such as the current pandemic.

This will also impact the role we, as the European Union - want to play in the world, as ageing is universal.

One thing is for sure: we will all grow older, which is a sign of fairness in itself. Of course, unless you watch the movies where ageing can also happen in the reverse order.

Now, I would like to conclude my intervention and hear your questions.

Thank you for your attention.