Follow-up on the Conference of seniors

The Parliament adopted its Resolution, drafted by Hugh McMahon (UK, PES) and Edgar Josef Schiedermeier (Germany, EPP), which draws attention to the specific problems of the elderly, including everyday discrimination and an increasing unemployment rate. Among other things, the Parliament calls on the EU, the Member States and business, and the social partners as far as it lies within their spheres of responsibility : - to launch a process of social rethinking with a view to preventing discrimination against older workers; - to create rights, enforceable in law, against discrimination on the labour market, with particular reference to job seeking, further training and reductions in staff numbers; - to promote lifelong learning and to tailor training, further training and retraining schemes to the needs of older workers and to open educational systems up to persons no longer in work; - to promote innovative forms of transition between work and retirement, for example, the model of part-time working for older persons; - in the medium term, to seek to co-ordinate pension systems and remove discrepancies between the provisions of labour law and social security legislation, for example, raising the retirement age while at the same time proting early retirement, and doing away with a statutory retirement age and fiscal disincentives to continuing to work after retirement age; - to adapt the working environment and modernise the organisation of work to meet the needs of older workers; - to devote particular attention to the position of older women on the labour market.�