This event was supported and moderated by two members of the National Assembly, Annie Vidal and Paul Christophe.
With France taking over the EU Presidency in the first half year of 2022, the event focused on the role of the Presidency to promote action to tackle the ageing challenge.
Invited to give a keynote address, Minister for Autonomy Brigitte Bourguignon highlighted the added-value of the EU and Member State collaboration on key societal challenges. Citing the recent success in vaccination against COVID-19, the Minister expressed the willingness to promote collaboration to promote healthy and autonomous ageing. The Minister mentioned the importance of the EU4Health programme to finance joint research actions, and that ageing is directly linked to the development of pathologies and patient care.
A first discussion took place about the key challenges relating to ageing. Involving local and regional authorities was outlined as essential, as it will allow the ageing and autonomy professionals to adapt their activity to the needs of their particular area. The importance of a global and multidisciplinary prevention in ageing was also highlighted in order to break the walls between the policy topics to ensure better patient care.
A second round-table addressed ageing in the framework of the French Presidency of the European Union. The importance of taking diseases as a whole question and not necessarily a part of ageing was particularly highlighted. All the interventions have outlined the efforts needed to engage a political dynamic on ageing and to make public policies integrate these subjects.
These discussions are encouraging as they show strong political willingness to change the way ageing is perceived and treated in Europe, thus matching the calls from the SHD Coalition for better patient care across Europe and to tackle age-discrimination.
Please find a written summary of the event (in French) in the attached document and full retransmission of the event here (in French). You can also access a summary video (in French) of the event here.
