The Italian Presidency of the Council of the European Union and the European Commission organised a Joint High Level Event on Non-Discrimination and Equality in Rome on 6-7 November 2014 entitled “Shaping the Future of Equality Policies in the EU”, which brought together 250 high-level delegates (governments, social partners, businesses, civil society, media, academics and independent experts) from the EU and beyond.
Dedicated panels, allowed civil society to provide testimonies and visions on the way towards achieving equality for all. AGE Platform Europe President, Marjan Sedmak and our expert and member of the Swedish Parliament, Barbro Westerholm, spoke on the session on age discrimination, discussing the challenges for older people and our call for an EU Strategy on Demographic Change.
A representative of the cabinet of Commissioner Jourova responsible for justice, consumer affairs and gender equality, stressed that the adoption of the horizontal non-discrimination directives counts among their top priorities. The European Commission also presented a first outline for a future High Level Group on Non-Discrimination, Diversity and Equality, which is to be established in early 2015. This group is supposed to gather governmental representatives in view of enhancing cooperation in this field. The discussion paperprepared for the Commission, suggested that this high-level group might consider developing a specific action plan on age discrimination, as specific attention to this area is lacking.
A number of member states signed the ‘Declaration of Rome‘, prepared by the Italian Presidency, setting out fourteen different commitments, including to effectively implement and apply the European equal treatment legislation and to seriously explore the adoption of the proposed Equal Treatment Directive to cover the provision of goods and services.
On this occasion, AGE joined forces with other non-discrimination networks to restate the need to advance with the speedy adoption of an ambitious horizontal directive, publishing this joint press-release.
For more information on this event, you may refer to the following links:
