The European Commission is aiming to help Member States deal with population decline via a “toolbox” of measures.
EU nations are seeing the average age of their citizens rise rapidly, with the EU as a whole expected to see a population decline of over 27 million by 2100.
Brussels wants bloc-wide measures to tackle ageing, with the European Commission being invited last week to develop a series of policies.
Speaking to Brussels Signal, a spokesman for the Commission confirmed that the development of a so-called “demography toolbox” was underway, with Vice-President of Democracy and Demography, Dubravka Šuica, stating that further detail was scheduled be revealed by autumn.
The toolbox will aim to give an “overview of the various types of policy tools, regulatory frameworks and funding instruments that support Member States’ efforts to deal with demographic change”.
But the spokesperson did not say whether or not this would involve attempts to bolster birthrates.
Declining birthrates are likely to become an ever bigger problem with France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands having already seen a collapse.
Some countries are trying to reverse this decline. Both Hungary and Poland have put in place financial incentives aimed at encouraging prospective parents to have more children.
Other nations have called for increases in inward migration to ease labour shortages brought about by its ageing population.
The former policy has so far failed to effectively combat the declining birthrate, while statistics from the Netherlands suggest the latter policy could end up making things worse. One researcher suggested each migrant from the developing world could end up costing the state over €100,000 during their lifetime in state support.
