Growing the European silver economy

The Juncker Commission has committed to focus policies on “the key challenges ahead for our economies and for our societies” and to work across portfolios to produce “integrated, well-grounded and well explained initiatives”. One of the challenges identified is “the ageing of our population”. Rapid demographic ageing is not only a major societal challenge (in terms of public budgets, workforce, competitiveness and quality of life) but also a major opportunity for new jobs and growth, also referred to as the Silver Economy. In the background paper Growing the Silver Economy in Europe, an overview is provided of relevant Silver Economy related initiatives of the European Commission; a tentative narrative on the Silver Economy and an equally tentative analysis of possible EU Silver Economy actions based on existing initiatives and their potential for the generation of new jobs and growth. The paper does not propose any new initiative as such, and the proposed narrative and example actions do not constitute any commitment by the DGs involved at this stage. They serve as input for further consideration.