Article 140 of the Treaty establishing the European Community provides that the Commission shall encourage cooperation between the Member States and facilitate the coordination of their action in all social policy fields.

In accordance with the Commission Communication of 12 October 2006 entitled ‘The demographic future of Europe, from challenge to opportunity’, the Commission has decided to enlist the assistance of a group of government experts.

The group must contribute to the development of policies for adapting to demographic change.

Care will be taken to ensure complementarity and an absence of overlap with the activities of other groups and committees dealing with demographic issues, including the Employment Committee, the Social Protection Committee, the Economic Policy Committee, the Economic and Financial Committee, the Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men and the High-Level Group on Gender Mainstreaming. The Commission will inform these bodies of the activities of the expert group on demographic issues.

The group must be composed of government representatives of the Member States and of independent experts.

The expert group on demographic issues should therefore be set up and its terms of reference and structures defined,