Merkel calls for more solidarity across generations

Germany needed more solidarity across the generations, said Chancellor Angela Merkel at a ceremony of the Generation Bridge Germany initiative here on Tuesday.

"People of all ages need to participate in social life," Merkel said, adding that Germans of all ages needed to feel needed.

Regardless of age, moving towards each other and being there for one another was becoming "increasingly important in view of demographic developments," she said.

Merkel emphasized that the Generation Bridge Germany, unlike any other project, "brings old people and children together in a beautiful and competent way".

The initiative, whose patron is Merkel, organizes regular meetings across Germany between old people in need of care as well as children and young people.

It was founded ten years ago and had been joined by more than 220 cooperation partners in eleven federal states from schools, day-care centers and nursing homes, according to the chancellor.

Data published by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on Tuesday showed that in 2017, the average age of the German population was 44.4 years and children and adolescents accounted for only 18.4 percent of the total population.

Germans aged 65 and over, meanwhile, accounted for 21.4 percent of the country's total population, according to Destatis.