Seanad debates
Thursday, 27 November 2003
Address by President of the European Parliament.
The Senator spoke about the Lisbon agenda and, broadly, about the social market economy. I agree with his remarks. I recently spoke at meetings in Germany about economic reform and in a broad way, without entering into the detail – Germans own the detail of the reform debate – argued the case for reform as being something indispensable. The demographics of continental Europe are changing; people are getting older. To live longer in good health is a wonderful tribute to having a society and not just an economy. We should not treat ageing as a problem, but from a financial point of view it is a challenge. For this reason there must be reform.
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