22/06/2009 Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The Committee on Economic Affairs and Development, meeting in Paris at the OECD headquarters on 19 June 2009, unanimously adopted a preliminary draft report on the activities of the OECD in 2008-2009. The committee had invited Corinne Lepage, former French Minister of the Environment, and Enrico Giovannini, chief statistician of OECD, to discuss the report "Wealth, welfare and wellbeing: how to reconcile them in a changing Europe?" (Konstantinos Vrettos, Greece, SOC), and raised the major economic challenges, but also the environmental, social and democratic challenges, that western societies would face in the near future. The rapporteur, Mr Vrettos, considered the report to be of major importance, since it dealt with the future of Europe's societies and their socio-economic development, and called on the governments of Council of Europe member states to embark immediately on the changes that would improve the well-being of future generations.