At the initiative of German Christian Democrat Dennis Radtke, MEPs at the plenary session of the European Parliament on Wednesday 22 January discussed the demographic decline of the European Union and the remedies to reverse the trend, including support for parents and access to childcare services, recognition of the work of informal carers, skills training for young people, affordable housing for young couples, and the use of legal migration to make up for shortages of (un)qualified labour.
The aim of the discussion was to take stock of the implementation of the ‘demography’ toolbox adopted by the Commission in 2023 (see EUROPE 13269/5), which identified a series of actions to be implemented.
Present at the debate, Dubravka Šuica, the European Commissioner for the Mediterranean, who is also responsible for demography, called on the Member States to step up their efforts and policies to reverse the decline. She insisted on the use of European cohesion funds to remedy certain problems, such as depopulation in certain regions. She also welcomed the creation of a ‘Housing’ portfolio within the new Commission, entrusted to her counterpart Dan Jørgensen (see EUROPE 13519/8).
The various European Parliament groups agreed on a series of measures, such as granting aid to young households, creating compulsory paternity leave and developing childcare services.
French environmentalist Majdouline Sbaï also pointed to the problem of infertility linked to the environment and to agro-toxic products, which she believes also require a strong response from the EU.
But the MEPs were also diametrically opposed on the subject of migration, with the PfE group accusing the European Commission of not encouraging the “European birth rate”, according to Julien Sanchez (French).
Dutch-Spanish MEP Raquel García Hermida-Van Der Walle (Renew Europe) also called for a point of order after far-right MEPs accused the Commission of promoting the “replacement” of the European population, a “hate speech expression”, she said. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)