This is probably one of the most ambiguous titles that I have used in any blogpost, but I think it is for a good reason. You see, the European Commission released last week a great report on the impact of demographic change on the future of the EU.
To cut a long story short, the EU is ageing. Fast. Very fast!
And so, as time goes by, our population is shrinking. We are going back in terms of progress, so to speak. Because in the long term, no society can truly progress without a steady stream of young blood that will fuel growth. The example of the not-to-distant to us Israel, where most families have close to three children each and where there is actually a shortage of qualified staff because of the speed with which the economy is expanding, is a great indicator why the EU must focus on tackling the demographic problems, more than any other issue.
Apart from the obvious challenges that this situation would provide for the healthcare and pension systems of EU countries, there is another thing that needs to be factored in: The accelerating disintegration of EU societies, resulting from their increased reliance of migration flows in order to curb the mounting pressure on their healthcare and pension systems.
My estimate about disintegration has obviously nothing to do with xenophobia. Rather, it is the natural way of societal evolution in cases where the velocity of the new inflows of people is increasing, resulting to a saturation of the capabilities of the current “core” of each society to amalgamate the new entrants.
The outcome of such a process is a mosaic type of society, which seems coherent on the surface, but take a closer look and you will quickly realize that its constituent parts are radically different from each other, and they are all vying for attention.
If you are wondering about what is the alternative to the above, you just have to juxtapose it to the early expansion days of New York: It was called the great melting pot, not the great mosaic. Melting various elements together tends to create a mix so coherent, that any try to disintegrate it back to its constituent parts, would be disproportionately time consuming and effort intensive.
Given how long it takes to have results in demographics management and how quickly it can spiral out of control past a certain tipping point, this should be one of the top priorities of the EU (perhaps second only to external security) irrespective of the financial cost that we will all need to bare in the process. I hope you agree with me on that. If you do, make sure you do your part, starting by contacting your representative in the EU parliament, and expressing your concerns to them.