The pandemic has brought out the contradiction of a society that on the one hand knows how to extend people's lives, but on the other fills them with loneliness and abandonment. Covid-19 has eliminated thousands of elderly people because we had already abandoned them. And we owe them a very serious debt. It is essential to remove at the root the serious shortcomings of an unbalanced, unjust, burdensome healthcare system, which itself causes so many victims. We need to overturn a paradigm. But this is only possible if we have a new vision of old age.

The demographic revolution that has occurred since the middle of the last century has brought to light a new continent, that of the elderly. Not that there weren't older ones before. But today is the first time in history that we have experienced "mass old age": millions more elderly people. An unknown continent, inhabited by people for whom there is no thought, neither political, nor economic, nor social, nor spiritual. It's an age to be invented. In short, we need a new vision of old age. Longevity is not a simple temporal addition, it profoundly changes our relationship with all of life.

Faced with this new scenario, the Commission deemed it appropriate to draw up a Charter that outlines some of the guiding principles of the new perspective on care for the elderly. The Charter does not only talk about the rights of the elderly, but at the same time indicates society's duties towards them. In this way the life of the elderly is connected to that of society, showing the inevitable link between everyone, even between different generations. The Charter concretely declines the indications contained in some international documents, such as the Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers CM / Rec (2014) 2 to the member states of the Council of Europe on the promotion of the human rights of older people adopted on 19 February 2014 and the European Charter of the Rights and Responsibilities of Elderly People in Need of Assistance and Long-Term Care drawn up in June 2010 in the framework of the European DAPHNE III Program against abuse of older people by a collaborative group of 10 countries as part of the project EUSTACEA.

Some might say that talking about rights is a pious illusion, the reality is quite different. The elderly are often seen as a problem for the country (just think of social security, hospital, pharmaceutical and other spending). Unfortunately, we forget that the elderly have not only more than earned the necessary social security and welfare relief, but are often the protagonists of assistance, for example towards their grandchildren or their spouses of the same age. And let's not forget that they represent a rather considerable market share, and the work associated with it, estimated by some at over 200 billion per year

The vision of the elderly proposed by the Charter presents them as a possible driver of inclusive and sustainable development of the country. In short, the elderly can go from being a problem to becoming an opportunity for the growth of our social and economic model. Using a term and concept dear to Jewish tradition, the deepest intent of the card is to promote a true process of Tiqqun Olam: repairing the world around the most fragile. Not only repairing their dignity and guaranteeing the protection of rights, but giving new life to that social, human, family and friendship fabric torn apart by the phenomena of individualism, the impoverishment of the family, demographic decline and the abandonment of the territories that has marked Italy of the 20th century.

The Charter articulates three contexts of rights and duties in as many chapters: 1) respect for the dignity of the elderly person, 2) the principles and rights for responsible assistance, 3) protection for a life of active relationships.