EU commisisoner Šuica sounds alarm on demographic shift

The European continent is ageing and the bloc is not ready for this radical change in the age pyramid, Dubravka Šuica, the EU’s first demography commissioner, stressed on Monday (25 March).

“This [change] demands a profound rethinking of institutional, political, economic and cultural frameworks, since they are designed for shorter life spans, so we have to change the mindset,” she told a conference in Brussels.

The EU commissioner warned that although this change is slow and often invisible to EU citizens in their daily lives, it is also extremely powerful and very difficult or impossible to reverse, especially in rural areas.

Today, a growing proportion of the EU’s population is over 65 and a significant number over 80. By 2100, the EU’s working-age population is expected to fall by 57.4 million.

At the same time, around half of the babies born in Europe today will live beyond the age of 100.

“The challenge lies in ensuring that people remain active in the workforce as long as they can or want to, and that our welfare states remain balanced,” said Belgian foreign minister Hadja Lahbib.

To take just one example, public spending is already projected to rise from 24.6 percent of GDP in 2019 to almost 27 percent in 2040.