The EU Observer reports on the labours of the Commission in producing a report on social models and sustainability, and the efforts they are making to try and de-politicise it. It seems our ageing societies and their implications will form the cornerstone of the report. This, at least, will mark a step forward. The October summit already bears all the hallmarks of being potentially much more interesting than the last one.
“The request for the report predates the [Franco-British] argument. This is the general awareness in the commission”, one of the study’s contributors told EUobserver. “Nothing new was stimulated by this disagreement. Whether you are on one side or another, everybody wants a viable social system”.
The source added that while the US has already done a lot of research on the problems linked with an ageing population for example, the EU situation is made more difficult by the fact that “we have 25 different systems” to take into account.
The report will be put together by a wide pool of officials from various units covering financial affairs, enterprise, employment and internal markets, as well as commission president Jose Manuel Barroso’s inhouse team of economic experts, the Bureau of European Policy Advisors (BEPA).“