EUROPE - The European Economic and Social Committee is to debate a motion calling for a European Agency on Ageing.

Among proposals put before the committee - which meets in plenary session in Brussels this week - is a motion calling for "the establishment of a joint European Observatory to build a European Agency on Ageing". The rapporteur for the issue is German committee member Renate Heinisch. Heinisch did not respond to a request for an interview.

"Research is needed particularly in the following areas: economic and financial policy; work and employment; elderly people's everyday lives; lifelong learning; process and collating of information," the session's agenda says.

It also calls for "the establishment of an specific category focusing on the issue of the Ageing Society".

The committee has drafted as so-called 'own-initiative' opinion which calls for the inclusion of a "key action point on demographic ageing".

"Research is needed particularly in the following areas: economic and financial policy; work and employment; elderly people's everyday lives; lifelong learning; process and collating of information."

And there is a call to "establish a sound basis" for timely policy planning, decision making and action at both the European and national level so that the Article 25 of the Fundamental Rights Charter, which guarantees all older EU citizens the right to live in dignity and to participate actively as citizens and in decision making processes, is complied with.

The 317-member committee was set up in 1957 and represents. "Its consultative role enables its members, and hence the organisations they represent, to participate in the Community decision-making process," its web site says.

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