Europe’s population is ageing. This process will continue in the coming decades. Projections suggest that the number of people aged 65 and above will have risen to 24% by 2050 and that there will be fewer than two persons of working age for every person aged 65 or more.

ESPON has played a timely role in supporting designing our territories in an age-friendly way and keeping older people’s interests in mind in policy making. In a conference on ageing in November 2020, the idea of turning ageing into an opportunity and launching a Silver Deal, just like the Green Deal, was advocated by cities and well received by participants.

Germany, Portugal and Slovenia signed a Trio Presidency declaration on ageing in December 2020. The three countries are jointly advocating urgent adaptation to demographic change and mainstreaming of ageing-related matters in all policy areas. This is an important achievement in strengthening the rights of older persons. The declaration stresses a human rights-based approach to ageing well, in order to ensure that increased life expectancy is accompanied with continuing good health and economic conditions.

Furthermore, the European Commission has launched a consultation on the Green Paper on Ageing. The Green Paper sets out the key issues related to ageing and discusses possible ways to anticipate and respond to the socio-economic impact of Europe’s ageing population.

This policy brief aims to inform European, national, regional and urban authorities about success factors for age-friendly territories. We also aim to support the WHO Decade of Healthy Ageing by providing evidence of successful policies and good practices that contribute to healthy and inclusive ageing in cities.

Further information

• Editorial team: Piera Petruzzi, Erik van Ossenbruggen, Mats Stjernberg
• ESPON ACPA | Adapting European Cities to Population Ageing: Policy Challenges and Best Practices
• Contact: [email protected]