Mr Michael Tiet Nielsen, representative of the European Platform AGE, ladies and gentlemen of the Assembly, dear retired friends;

As I don’t speak spanish very well, I am going to tell you a few words slowly so you can all understand me.

We are now at Salou, with its beautiful beach in the province of Tarragona, in the prosperous Catalonia. A year has passed since our last Euromeeting and the sun with its three hundred and sixty-five rotations has only brought us war, destruction and death.

We, the “less young”, have already lived a great part of our lives and it is often hard for us to accept this situation and we completely reject it. And for us, the pensioners, what has happened during these twelve months?

I think that most of us have kept the same monotony of our lives in all its forms,... and this must change.

But how?

With the motto “all for one and one for all”. Keeping on our side the power of reason and all the effort and dedication we have put in to  rise big finance buildings (speaking metaphorically), and that we often have not been appreciated.

Each country sees its pensioners in a different way, or, in some cases, they don’t even look at them.

In the 2003 Euromeeting bulletin, I wrote a small article about the future European Constitution asking whether it would bring us something good. I was also interested in the article our colleague Jean Claude Chrétien wrote “Towards a European Retirement”, because it expresses exactly what I think about the subject.

In a Europe formed by twenty-five countries, maybe for most of you this suggestion must seem an utopia. And how many utopies have been concreted since the human being appeared on our planet?

The written precept “the same amount of work, the same salary” referreing to us should be “the same retirements, the same pensions in all the countries of the European Community”.

I think that the study of our Honour President Mr José Lidón, based on surveys in our Group’s different countries, could now be used as a motor for what our colleague Chrétien suggets. With our membership to “The elderlies Platform AGE”, we have the possibility of beginning what a lot of people consider an utopia.

In each country of our Group, in all the European Union, there will be no financial nor social inequalities as long as we all recognize being citizens of a new Europe in the baking system.

I will finish wishing you all to be in good health and that when you go back home you find your family as well as possible.           

   Thank you very much.

                                                                                                                      Antonio Serra