European Union does not grant harmonized solution of demographic problems

Everybody knows that European Union is not homogeneous. The idea behind unification was to overcome all kinds of disparity by joint efforts. The inherent demographics processes in European countries do not obey the unification plan, however.  The OECD database allows taking a specific look at the past and future of all countries … and found that some countries go wrong way after joining the EU. Figure 1 demonstrates that three Baltic countries have been and extremely steep depopulation trajectory after 1990. In 2015, they were by 15% to 25% smaller in terms of total population when in 1990 (notice that they grew by 30% from 1950 to 1990). According to the OECD projection, three Baltic countries will lose from 35% to 40% of their population relative to 1990. This is rather grim future.

On the other hand, France and UK were, are and continue to be on a healthy growth path with a perspective of 35% larger population in 2015 than it was in 1990.  Russia has stabilized its population around 146 million, i.e. 99% of that in 1990, and will not change much in the future.

The case of Germany is most illustrative for the current political discussion of immigration in Europe. Germany loses now and will be losing its population in the future. The OEDC projection says that the UK will overtake Germany in 2045 and France in 2050. Germany is losing its biggest population position against major European economies. This might be the reason for mercantile Merkel to invite as many immigrants as possible to boost German population and return it on the growing trajectory.  Die Kanzlerin is wise.

All in all, European Union will suffer strong demographic problems, which are related to emergent recognition of fading national identity. 

Figure 1. Total population in selected European countries according to the OECD historical time series and population projections. All curves are normalized to their respective values in 1990.