Mr President, I am pleased to be able to speak here during the last Friday sitting of this year, which will hopefully not be the last ever in Strasbourg. As a member of the Friday Club – which admittedly is not an official group but in practice does exist – I am one of the hosts of the Members present today, as you are, and I hope that we will also manage this next year. We really will have to find the ways and means to achieve this. As someone who is not yet a senior citizen, the following struck me about the report on a Europe for all ages, including the elderly: neither of my committees – the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities – lament the fact that our society is ageing; they welcome it. Mrs Flemming has rightly pointed out that it is positive that people are able to live for longer and at the same time stay healthy. What is negative is that many of them are sidelined, and it is also negative that many of them are forced to feel marginalised. The fact that people are discriminated against on the grounds of age was, of course, confirmed in my report on Article 13, which I was able to present to the House in October. Older workers are prevented from going on to further education and training courses; they are also prevented from acquiring new technical skills even though they would be capable of doing so. Their ability to learn and even their ability to innovate are denied. They are harassed at work, with the result that, in the end, they give in and allegedly retire from their job voluntarily. Measures need to be taken to combat acts of discrimination. These must be developed through model projects which, in turn, need to be supported by Community initiatives such as EQUAL. Mrs Sbarbati is right to call on the Commission to support the proposal to limit compulsory early retirement. I can amplify what she said with some comments on the German experience. The rules on early retirement, which were initially well intentioned on the part of politicians, were seriously abused by some companies. They accepted payments – the whole of society was therefore involved – and older workers retired, but younger workers were not taken on and many jobs were shed. If we talk about finance, anyone who retires from working life is entitled to a pension and not to be discriminated against with people saying, 'You are getting a pittance'. However different the national pensions systems are in Europe, they should all be earnings- and performance-related. I hope that there will be information campaigns in the Member States encouraging older people to get involved in society, in cultural and social activities, in community centres, in caring for children and the elderly, in associations and clubs. We need these people and not only the young, dynamic and successful people! Another part of an effective strategy is to foster an intergenerational dialogue. I am thinking of encounters in seminars and evaluation of best practices, where older people can pass on their knowledge and experience to younger people in the company. Many people are younger at 70 than others are at 17, who only want to go with the flow and not upset anyone or attract attention. Anyone who is satisfied with the average will never embark on the adventure of a committed life. The countless active elderly people should motivate us all to fight for a society in which the phrase intergenerational solidarity is not just empty words! (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE