The forecast that far-right growth could speed up European population decline will create economic shocks such as growth and rising prices from pensions and elderly care.
Anti-immigrant politics is on the rise across the EU, as demonstrated by the interests made by far-right parties in the 2024 elections. Meanwhile, the anti-million-refuge alternative Für Deutschland (AFD) is the second in the preparations for this month’s German federal elections.
However, those who want to close European borders must contest the harsh demographic reality. Indigenous people of the continent are expected to drop sharply in the next century during an era of low birth rates.
Experts warn that European society will age faster without immigration, pose many economic challenges as the labor force shrinks and caregiving responsibility grows.
“Most politicians on the central left and central right recognize that immigration is needed to ease demographic pressure,” says John Springford, a quasi-fellow at the European Reform Think Tank Centre. states. “They sought to focus on stricter and often inhumane rules of asylum in the hope that stricter border enforcement would provide higher regular immigration political coverage.
“However, radical right parties are increasingly challenging mainstream consensus. Countries that manage to retain boundaries despite demands to reduce working-age immigration will be economical in the long run. I’m in a stronger position.”
The latest forecasts produced by Eurostat, the official EU statistical bureau, suggest that the population of the bloc, up to 2,100, will be reduced by 6% based on current trends.
But its decline pales in comparison to the eurostat scenario without immigration. By 2100, agents would reduce the population decline by more than a third to 295 million people, excluding immigrants from modeling.
Eurostat’s baseline forecast assumes that the country will maintain its average net mobility level from the past 20 years, but the Guardian excluded this assumption and looked at figures published by the agency.
Similarly, the UK’s National Statistics Office has published population forecasts that include zero-net transition scenarios.
Italy, France and Germany, which have recently been invaded by anti-immigrant politicians, will face a major decline in populations in a zero immigration scenario.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni prioritized crackdown on movements in her first term, but her country is one of Europe’s lowest birth rates, with its population being the century among zero immigrants It’s half by the end.
In Germany, if the anti-immigrant AFD is voting second, the population could shrink from 83 million to 53 million over the next 80 years if the border is closed completely.
And in France, the zero immigration scenario means the population will fall from 68 million to 59 million as national rally last summer won the first round of legislative elections seeking limits on callers.
Only a handful of EU states will notice little difference from closed borders. Romania, Latvia and Lithuania are all countries that have experienced a net outflow of people.
Instead, in most Europe, the population will not only shrink in the absence of current levels of immigration, but will also age as the number of working-age people decreases compared to older people.
Today, 21% of the EU’s population is over 65 years old. In the Eurostat baseline scenario, this percentage will increase to 32% by 2100, but in the agency’s zero immigration scenario, it will increase to another 36%.
Those studying the age-changing pyramids in Europe say this will increase the country’s economic pressure.
“As the workforce shrinks, the main consequences are slower growth and higher tax burdens are increased as pension spending and demand for health and elderly care increases,” Springford said.
In fact, most of the EU has already seen this. This has been climbing in counties such as France, Italy, Germany and Spain over the last few decades, as expressed through tax revenue as a percentage of GDP.
The health and social care industry has become increasingly important to manage older Europe, and many health systems in the EU already rely on immigrant doctors or nurses.
“More people will need care, but it depends on the elderly of healthy people and how much care they need,” says Allan, professor of economics at the London School of Economics. Manning said.
“You’re also on the other side of the equation that education and childcare needs fewer people because there are fewer children, low birth rates, so in a sense, what we need to do is , to take care of the elderly to those who were caring for the children.”
At the same time, experts have emphasized that immigration is not a silver bullet for European demographic challenges, instead it is one of many solutions, or at least moves to an older society. It suggests that it is a way to make it easier.
“Rising the level of immigration will not solve these demographic problems on their own. The level required to do so is very large, and only a very large number of migrants willing to move. Not there,” Springford said.
“However, they will help raise employment rates for working-age people, push back the age of retirement, reform pensions, and change the burden of taxation from labor income to wealth, especially property.”
Manning added: “For immigrants to help, it is that they are actually working, and many European countries have very low employment rates among many immigrants. So you give it You can’t take it as something you’ve been. If you have immigrants who came in and didn’t work and needed support for welfare, it won’t make things better, that will make things worse. So , it’s really important that they do their job, and that can be problematic in some cases.”
Within the borders, rural areas will bear the brunt of the EU’s future population decline. Over the next 80 years, more villages could suffer the same fate as Kamini in southern Italy.
The village is one of many in the Calabrian region, where its population declined sharply in the second half of the 20th century as young residents moved elsewhere for opportunities.
Kamini has recently become the site of a project that has resettled refugees, and is trying to reclaim its community from its disappearance. This was cited in a recent Council of Europe report written by Labour MP Kate Osemore, who investigated the potential for immigration to alleviate the challenges of older adults.
“I was watching the place die slowly,” said Rosario Zurzolo, president of Eurocorp Servigi, born in Kamini and now president of the cooperative that runs the resettlement project. It states.
So far, 50 refugees have settled in Kamini permanently under the plan, increasing the village’s population to 350, while another 118 are temporarily hosting. The iconic achievement of the scheme was the recent reopening of local schools.
Zurzolo says Camini can act as a model that will help stimulate the activity of other European regions experiencing population decline.
Serena Franco, part of the Kamini Project and who presented evidence to the Council of Europe for its report, added: “They bring knowledge, and new jobs are likewise impossible without them.”
