International

Along with a motley company of Euro-MPs from various political tendencies, I found in Strasbourg this week that there was enough time between voting sessions to attend the re-establishment of the Intergroup on Ageing. And not only had I to find the time, but the place, as we all ended up going to the wrong room, having been given the wrong number. 1.3 instead of 3.1, a mistake involving numerous storeys, flights of stairs, lifts and corridors. You might well think that old age brings with it a number of deficiencies, but as it turns out, anyone can make mistakes, even a room coordinator barely out of school!

Kartika Liotard was elected vice-president of the Intergroup on Ageing

A bit of chaos is quite nice, but what was I planning to do when I got to the Intergroup? Well, let me put it this way: in the five years of my term I am going to do all I can to ensure that the voice of our old people is heard, and not only heard but backed up and held fast. This is absolutely needed, because while the impact of European policy is much greater than people persist in thinking, EU policies take very little account of the needs and wishes of older people.

So there's a great deal of work to be done, in relation for example to employment discrimination – which begins well before you reach your sixty-fifth birthday – or to poverty amongst old people, a terrible problem which will not be improved by the current vicissitudes of pension systems.

And I haven't yet mentioned the shortage of care tailored to need, because of which old people, against their wishes, must give up their independence in return for a strictly regimented existence in a retirement home, or the lack of suitable housing or of residential areas adapted for older people's needs, in which they can enjoy life in their own environment and own neighbourhoods without unnecessary risk.

Of course I won't be doing all of this on my own, because the Intergroup on Ageing will be supported by AGE-Platform, an umbrella group in which all sorts of old people's organisations from throughout Europe are represented. If you want to find out more about AGE-Platform, go to their website, www.age-platform.org, where you can also follow the activities of the Intergroup on Ageing.