In 2020, the pandemic caused a general decline in population in most countries due to high death rates, in countries like ours, the official government figures are 70,000 deaths, while the statistics show almost 60,000 more deaths than the executive wanted count, according to La Gaceta, citing Rador.

This did not happen in other countries of the European Union, but in any case, to make this short analysis, we wanted to start with the official figures for 2020 and compare them with 2021 and 2022 to see what happened after the pandemic in the European Union and the Eurozone.

So we see that in the European Union we have lost inhabitants in the last two years, compared to 2020, 0.11% in 2021 and 0.04% in 2022, this means that we have lost a total of 656,428 inhabitants in the two mentioned years.

If we do the same analysis for the countries of the Eurozone, we have better news: the Eurozone has no population growth in 2021, it remains the same, but in 2022 it has a growth of 0.1%, which allows us to state that the population in 20 countries of the euro zone increased by 312,193 inhabitants.

In 2020, the population of the EU in absolute terms amounted to 447.5 million inhabitants, in 2022 – 446.8 million.

These figures are good for us, because we know that the birth rate in all EU countries is very low, and if these population figures have not fallen in a much more alarming way, it has been due to immigration, which has supported a share of the population. European population.

On the other hand, we see that there is tension in France because the president of the country has decided to postpone the retirement of the French for two years to try to avoid the bankruptcy of the pension system in the medium term, and (in Spain) Airef (La Autoridad Independiente de Responsabilidad Fiscal ) has just sharply criticized the Minister of Social Security for his disastrous reform, which he says he will present to Europe without negotiating with the CEOE (Confederación Española de Organizaciones Empresariales, the Spanish business community) or any other representative of business people, and in the opinion of this independent agency, such a reform would result in Spain accumulating a debt of more than 150% of GDP in a few years if it were to continue paying pensions.

One of the big problems in all countries is that, fortunately, life expectancy has increased, but on the other hand, the pool of workers capable of generating enough income for the pension system is shrinking, and soon the number of public sector workers, plus pensioners, plus the unemployed may end up being larger than the number of workers in a productive system, and so there will be more people paying than the number of people working to maintain the system. In short, we are becoming a region of old people.

The biggest increase in France and the Netherlands

We have 17 countries with growth (number of inhabitants) compared to 10 countries with decline (number of inhabitants), with those with a decrease weighted more than those with an increase, as the countries with the highest growth, in percentage terms, are Luxembourg, Ireland, Cyprus, Malta and Sweden are very small countries.

In absolute terms, France is the country with the highest growth, adding 357,051 inhabitants in two years, followed by the Netherlands, which adds 183,087 inhabitants, Sweden with 124,737 inhabitants, Belgium with 108,696 inhabitants and Spain, which is the fifth country. , in absolute terms, with the largest contribution, 100,191 residents.

It is decreasing the most in Italy, Poland and Romania

On the other hand, the countries with the biggest reductions are Italy, whose population has decreased by 658,366 people, without doubt the country with the worst performance on this variable.

It is followed by the sixth largest country in the EU, Poland, whose population decreased by 303,891 inhabitants, followed by Romania with a decrease of 290,740 inhabitants, Croatia, which recently entered the euro zone, with a decrease of 179,091 inhabitants, and the Czech Republic The republic, which, although it grew in 2022, did not grow enough and recorded a loss of 177,232 inhabitants.

The von der Leyen-led European Commission is deep into its 2030 climate plan (the “Green Deal”) and preoccupied with making our food the healthiest in the world, ready to force us to eat insects instead of worrying about the demographic winter ahead.

I know of only one country, Hungary, which is implementing very serious and aggressive plans to promote fertility, which lost 80,516 inhabitants in two years, but it seems that in a very short time it can recover its birth rate.

Other of our leaders believe that the solution is migration, forgetting that the situation can be changed at any time (the crisis of 2008-2014 forced many Colombian migrants to return to their country of origin) and that a policy of cultural integration is also needed to avoid the appearance of ghettos that socially distort any country. One only has to look at France and especially at Paris to understand this.

Europe and its leaders must immediately include in their plans measures to promote fertility and reduce our dependence on migration in the next 20 years, reports La Gaceta, as quoted by Rador.