ON NOT CHANGING THEIR SPOTS

Waking Up to Europe's Uncertain Future (Jim Hoagland, June 22, 2003, The Washington Post)

If present demographic trends and tight barriers against immigration remain in place, the proposed mighty new 25-nation European Union will record a net decline in population of 50 million people by 2050, parliamentarian Elisabeth Guigou is saying. The new Old Continent's workforce will be literally decimated, and its economy will probably stultify.

But no gasps of horror, no sharp intakes of breath pierce my drowsiness. The discussion quickly bypasses such unpleasant facts of life to revert to abstract debate on the powers of the European Parliament vs. those of national governments.

While Americans sponsor radical change in the Middle East and fight a war against global terrorism, Europeans move deeper into a challenging but essentially inward-looking exercise of continental redefinition. Like the Sicilian aristocrats in Lampedusa's The Leopard, they pursue change close to home so things will remain the same. Or so they think. [...]

As Guigou pointed out at last week's seminar, there are heavy costs in maintaining the status quo and disturbing long-term trends for those who would construct Europe as a global rival and counterweight to the United States.

One is negative population growth: Birthrates in major Western European countries have fallen to 1.5 children or fewer per woman. Legal immigration is severely restricted, largely to avoid exacerbating social tensions focused on Arab and African immigrant ghettos. Meanwhile, with higher birthrates and a flow of a million new immigrants a year, the U.S. population is growing.

After an admirable run of success, France, Germany and other nations in Western Europe face serious prospects of economic decline and social dislocation.

The most remarkable aspect of this story, which the press is finally starting to wake up to, is that the Europeans have chosen to try and manage their decline, rather than at least attempt to reverse it. They've essentially given up. That's got to be especially disturbing for folks who advocate that we become as secular and statist as they. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 22, 2003 6:04 AM