Demography and competitiveness in the European Union
We presented the publication "Demography and competitiveness in the European Union", which presents the correlation between demographic trends and competitiveness in 13 chapters.
At the joint event of KINCS and Oeconomus, dr. Ágnes Hornung greeted the guests, who pointed out Europe's significant demographic challenges. The State Secretary responsible for Families of the Ministry of Culture and Innovation (KIM) emphasized: not enough children being born will lead to the end of our culture. The nations of Europe are disappearing, and with them, our common values are also fading away. In order to eliminate this threat, the Hungarian state has developed a system that provides opportunities for prosperity to all family members, in addition to focusing on those who plan to have children. She added: without families, there is no national future, and there is no ability to act economically either.
In his video message sent to the event, Dr. Miklós Panyi, State Secretary for Parliamentary and Strategic Affairs of the Prime Minister's Office, pointed out that although Hungary is forced to endure a series of unworthy accusations and attacks from the European Union, our country protects Europe precisely by clinging to and guarding Europe's Christian cultural heritage. The survival of Europe is at stake, therefore during the upcoming Hungarian presidency of the Council of the EU, our government will be working to urge the Union to start looking for real solutions to the issues that determine the continent's fate, including the demographic challenges.
Tünde Fűrész spoke at the event about the fact that the population of the European Union accounts for just over 5 percent of the world's population, which has grown to 8 billion. The fertility rate, which shows the willingness to have children, has dropped to 1.46, and as a result, less than 4 million children are born in the EU every year, one fifth of them to mothers who were born outside of Europe. The president of KINCS also pointed out that the European society is getting older, there are one and a half times more elderly people than children. The EU is in decline, but the Hungarian model is a good example of how this can be changed.
Dr. Péter Törcsi highlighted that, compared to the rest of the world, in Europe, the decline in continental competitiveness began already in 2019, which worsened due to the Covid epidemic and the war in Ukraine. According to the chairman of the board of trustees of Oeconomus, in Western Europe, they try to deal with the competitiveness problem by raising the retirement age, putting young people to work as soon as possible and attracting a large number of migrants. However, the Hungarian recipe is based on family policy measures, which has now become a real hungaricum.
At the conference, the publication "Demography and competitiveness in the European Union" was presented by professionals of KINCS and Oeconomus, outlining in detail the data on the willingness to have children and to marry, the number of births, old-age dependency, the labor market situation, and the data on the employment of women. The presentation of the publication was followed by a policy roundtable discussion by dr. Péter Balázs Molnár, Deputy State Secretary for European Affairs, Dr. Ádám Csepeti, Deputy State Secretary for Coordinating Strategic Affairs, Dr. Attila Beneda, Deputy State Secretary for Family Affairs, and Loránd István Szakáli, Strategic Director of the Oeconomus Economic Research Foundation. The focus of the roundtable discussion was on the importance of the upcoming presidency of Hungary of the EU. The conversation was moderated by dr. Árpád József Mészáros, the vice president of our institute.
The publication is available at the following link:
https://www.koppmariaintezet.hu/docs/DEMOGRAPHY_AND_COMPETITIVENESS_IN_THE_EUROPEAN_UNION.pdf
