The EU Green Paper on Ageing seeks to launch a 'broad policy debate on ageing' and means to respond to the associated opportunities and challenges. The changing demographics across Europe and the ongoing pandemic have highlighted some of the challenges and ageing population faces in terms of both health and social care. The Green Paper takes a lifecycle approach that reflects the universal impact of ageing and focuses on both the personal and wider societal implications of ageing.

The green paper is open for public consultation at time of writing, until 21st of April 2021.

The EU_SHAFE project is intended to help influence regional policy in the area of SHAFE and the consortium includes representatives of some of the key active and healthy ageing (AHA) reference sites across Europe. The project team is preparing a concerted project response with a collective voice to this document, based on policy and implementation experiences that have been shared between the various partners and reference sites within the project.

To facilitate the project team's response to the consultation process, on the 30th of March, 15 members of the project team; representing all partners who came from the following regions, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Germany, Slovenia, Portugal and Ireland; participated in an online co-creation workshop to brainstorm our response. The workshop was led by the Irish partners Louth County Council and TU Dublin. The results of the co-creation is intended to provide ideas to input into the Projects team's response to the green paper.

A lively and interactive discussion around the issues raised in Chapter 4, New opportunities and challenges in Retirement, and Chapter 5, Meeting the growing needs of an ageing population, took place and many valid and thought provoking answers were gathered. It was agreed that TU Dublin would collate all the points raised and develop the submission. Partners will then have the opportunity to add to or clarify any points before the submission is made on behalf of the project.

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