EURAG meeting in Israël

EURAG meeting in Israël

September 3-7 , 2023

This time (September 2023) our EURAG conference took place in Tel Aviv hosted by our Israeli member organization HISTADRUT.

We were returning to Israel after 13 years.

The topic of the conference was carefully selected as a reflection of the present situation in Europe: „Challenges and effects of current economic-financial changes on the living situation of older persons “

Older persons are among the most vulnerable members of our (European) society. When budgets become tighter and public investments shifted to other areas (for example the military) they are particularly affected by inflation, reduction of health and social services. Care and related needs become more expensive. While pensions stagnate and personal savings loose value. For poor older persons the situation may become dramatic and can have severe health, psychological and social problems.

The participants of the conference from the listed 13 countries reported about a specific situation in their particular countries and how the national pension schemes are dealing with challenges of the present time : Albania Austria Czech Rep. Denmark France Germany Hungary Iceland Israel Latvia Lithuania Slovenia Switzerland

And it was apparent that all the countries are dealing with these problems. Better situation might be in Scandinavia and Iceland, worse in Slovenia where the recent floods contributed to the misery. Jozica Puhar was unable to come because of health reasons but her presentation was shown

We have been totally overwhelmed by the Israeli hospitality and organization of the entire event.

Imagine, that our conference was opened by Isaac Herzog, the Israeli president, who nominally welcomed the president of EURAG and the secretary general in his speech and wished to all of us the successful conference.

We met also Gilad Kariv, the member of the Israeli Parliament representing the opposition, whose speech you can read in the minutes.

Not talking about the headquarters of Histadrut which is the Israeli association of workers which includes representatives from all parts of the Israeli society.

We had a charter bus to our disposal all the time, we dined in excellent restaurants and got the best guides to show us around Jaffa and Jerusalem, we tested the percentage of salt in the Dead sea and visited a senior club in Ramat Gan, which is one of the adjacent cities to Tel Aviv. Not to forget to mention that we were able to admire the illuminated Tel Aviv from the restaurant in 49th floor of a skyscraper.

Here are the photos of the meeting and all events

https://photos.app.goo.gl/StvDG8XKvZWfRWFL6

other photos from HISTADROUT

https://photos.app.goo.gl/HZW8A5Y1XR2sj9Ay6

Here is the program