Brussels, 08/11/2006 (Agence Europe) - Faced with the challenge of an ageing population, finance ministers from the EU25 are supporting the analysis made by the Commission (EUROPE 9285), which calls for structural reforms in three areas: debt reduction, job creation and increased productivity, as well as the re-examination, when required, of health care and pension schemes. They point out in their conclusions that action leading up to 2010 to attain the medium term budgetary objectives would represent considerable but insufficient progress to reduce the shortcomings. They are calling on the Commission to elaborate a new report on the viability of new common projections on public spending linked to ageing, which will be available in 2009.
In the field of statistics, the Council wants to see further improvements in the availability and quality of the main European economic indicators whose implementation has not yet been reinforced. Ecofin conclusions point out that progress is particularly expected for statistics on services and the labour market, and call for closer coordination between national statistic authorities in the process. (ab)