EU president wants Europe-wide retirement reforms: report

(BERLIN) - European Union President Herman Van Rompuy wants member states to look at changing the age of retirement to take into account longer life expectancy, Germany's Welt am Sonntag reported Sunday.

"We can give recommendations to the Union as a whole, (saying) for example that there is a relation between the retirement and life expectancy," he told the paper.

"We can commit all 27 member states to reforming their retirement systems within a fixed time and in a way that meets a fixed objective," he added.

It was important to not simply make recommendations and leave each country to do as it pleased, he said, stressing that limits had to be put in place.

"It is one of the issues we have to discuss in the coming months...," he added, saying that this would be one of the issues on the table at the two-day European summit, which starts Thursday in Brussels.

EU leaders will have the euorzone crisis at the top of the agenda at the Brussels summit.