European Commission publishes "The 2012 Ageing Report"
Friday 25 May 2012
On 25 May, the European Commission presented “The 2012 Ageing Report: Economic and budgetary projections for the EU27 Member States (2010-2060)”. This is the 4th report that analyses the long-term economic and budgetary impact of an ageing population.
The report details the expenditure projections covering pensions, health care, long-term care, education and unemployment transfers for all Member States.
The report is structured in two parts: 1) description of the underlying assumptions: population projection, labour force projection and other macroeconomic assumptions and sensitivity tests; 2) presentation of the methodologies for projecting future expenditure on pensions, health care, long-term care, education and unemployment benefits. A statistical annex gives an overview of the main assumptions by country.
On the basis of current policies, age-related public expenditures (pensions, health-care and long-term care) are projected to increase by 4.1 percentage points to around 29% of GDP between 2010 and 2060. Public pension expenditure alone is projected to rise by 1.5 percentage points to nearly 13% of GDP by 2060. However, the report shows a large diversity across EU Member States, depending notably on progress with pension reforms.
The updated projections of age-related expenditure and the associated sustainability assessments provide important insights to both the economic impact of ageing and the risks to the long-term sustainability of Member States’ public finances reflecting new economic environment, affected by a durable impact of the current crisis, and further reform effort by EU MS.
In 2009, the Economic and Financial Affairs (ECOFIN) Council mandated the Economic Policy Committee (EPC) to update and further deepen its common exercise of age-related expenditure projections by 2012, based on a new population projection by Eurostat. "The 2012 Ageing Report" has been jointly prepared by the European Commission, Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs and the Economic Policy Committee Ageing Working Group.