Addressing Europe’s Demographic Challenges by Supporting Families Instead of Encouraging Migration

Abstract

Two decades after Hungary’s accession to the European Union, it will hold the presidency of the Council of the European Union for the second time. The demographic challenges facing Europe have intensified significantly since the first Hungarian presidency in 2011. Our country is taking over the baton at a time when no EU country is giving birth to enough children for population replacement. The trend until now has been that the desire to have children is declining in the formerly leading Western and Northern European countries, while in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe this desire keeps growing, at the highest rate in Hungary. In global comparison, population loss will mean a continuous decrease in the relevance of the European Union and its ability to enforce its interests. Yet the issue of population does not receive the necessary attention in European public thinking. Just as it did in 2011, during its first presidency, Hungary will again focus on encouraging the birth of European children in 2024. This objective is in line with the opinion of the European population, for whom the family is of paramount importance, and which thus requires support, and who believe that population loss should be tackled by strengthening families and not by encouraging inward migration.