Europe: Consultation Opens on Designating 2012 Year for Active Ageing and Intergenerational Solidarity

Following on April's conference on intergenerational solidarity, the European Commission has been receiving calls to organize a European Year for Active Ageing and Intergenerational Solidarity. The purpose would be to increase the awareness of the contribution of older people to society and spread innovative measures that could help to mobilize the full potential of the ageing baby-boom cohorts.

Accordingly, it has launched a consultation with the purpose to collect ideas and suggestions from key stakeholders and experts on how to achieve the greatest possible impact with such a European Year and to help the Commission decide whether and how to organize a European Year. There are separate questionnaires for citizens, organizations, and public authorities. Responses to the questionnaire, which is meant to help respondents in structuring their response to this consultation and the Commission in analyzing the responses, should be submitted by the 31st of July 2009, preferably in English, French or German.

Source: European Commission News Release (July 17, 2007)

Europe: Foundation Creates Resource for Active Aging Research

The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) has launched a major communication campaign on active ageing. According to Eurofound, promoting employment opportunities for an ageing workforce is a complex challenge that requires rethinking at company, national and EU level. Eurofound's campaign is aimed at bringing policymakers, companies and society up to par with the latest research data, recommendations and case examples to tackle the challenges and explore the opportunities associated with active ageing.

To this end, Eurofound has published an online Resource Pack for "Working longer, living better-–Europe’s coming of age" launched with a variety of materials, inlcuding:

• Fact Sheet: "Europe's coming of age"
• Fact Sheet: "What companies can do"
• "Ageing workforce initiatives: company cases"
• "Employment initiatives for an ageing workforce: national reports" These are overview country reports that look at the evolution of initiatives related to older employees undertaken by selected organisations over the last decade: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, UK, and which have been extended to include cases from the new Member States: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia.

Source: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions Press Release (March 14, 2008)