Europe loses population faster than Russia

Post-communist countries within the EU are losing population faster than Russia, Mark Adomanis, a Forbes blogger argued in his article. American economist Lyndon LaRouche pointed out that as of 2012 the population of 14 European countries has decreased. He called the EU's policy in the field of demography a policy of "genocide," and Russian expert Irina Rudneva agreed with him.

Mark Adomanis positions himself as an expert on Russia and an author who is trying to write about the country more or less objectively. He provided a graph of the population in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia since 1994 and compared it with similar dynamics in Russia in favor of the latter.

The author wrote that all the stories about "the last man in Russia" looked far more relevant for the countries scrupulously following Western recipes. The new EU member countries have liberalized their economies, opened their markets to Western goods, and joined NATO and the European Union. Yet, instead of demographic stability they received as a reward for all the efforts only a colossal decline in population, even worse than in Russia.

The author concluded that the trend could only increase "in Russia's favor" because recently the European Union lifted the last restrictions for Romanian and Bulgarian workers. Mark Adomanis wrote that the outflow of workers from the East to the West would probably slightly increase, and considering the poor economic conditions in places such as Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania, many of those who left abroad are unlikely to soon return to their homeland. Adomanis concluded that the liberalization of the economy, labor market reforms and free and fair elections were not directly related to an increase in life expectancy, birth rate growth, or attraction of migrants.

"The liberalization of the economy has no direct impact on birth rate growth," commented for Pravda.Ru Natalia Tikhonova, head of the department of social and economic systems of the HSE. "Increase in population is boosted not only and not so much by economic reasons, but culture, traditions, and stage of development of a country. As for the post-communist countries, their young population is leaving for Western Europe. Liberalization has nothing to do with it. As for Russia, in different regions these numbers vary greatly. If we were to subtract the number of births in Muslim regions from the average number for Russia, I think it would not be higher than in those countries. I would try to see deeper processes in these data," said the expert.

Let's try to see these "deep processes" in the statistics. If you look at the results of the last census that took place in the EU in 2011, the most catastrophic situation is in Romania where the population in the last decade has declined by 12 percent. No less serious is the situation in Latvia where the population has decreased mainly due to emigration by 13 percent, as well as Lithuania - 12 percent. The decrease in Bulgaria was ten percent, and in Serbia that is not yet part of the EU - five percent. In Hungary where 10.4 million people lived before 1989, now less than ten million people reside. Demographers paint a bleak picture for Eastern Europe for not too distant future. By 2060 Romania, Latvia, Poland and Bulgaria will have the highest in the EU share of elderly population compared to working population.

American economist Lyndon LaRouche called demographic policy of the EU a policy of "genocide." He pointed out that as of 2012 over five years the population of 14 European countries has decreased in absolute terms. The countries where the population is shrinking, in addition to Eastern Europe, are those in Southern Europe - Greece, Spain and Portugal. In Portugal and Italy death rate has been higher than birth rate since 2008, and every year the imbalance is growing. He believes one of the reasons for this situation to be impoverishment.

LaRouche wrote that this was not just some horror movie. This is done consciously. The British Empire has openly declared that the human population should be reduced. The easiest and most effective way to do so is to reduce the potential relative population density to a level that does not allow maintaining the current level of the population, Lyndon LaRouche argued. Irina Rudneva, scientific secretary of the Center for the Study of the Balkans Crisis with the Institute for Slavic Studies, agreed: "The current demographic decline in the former Yugoslavia is not associated with market liberalization, but the consequences of the economic, social, and psychological crisis that these countries went through in 1990s," the told Pravda.Ru.

"This (the outflow of population and reduction of natural growth) also has to do with the domestic and foreign policy. European Union is constantly giving conditions to the countries that are not its members. Those who have already entered the union are forced to play by its rules, and it has a very strong impact on their economic development, and not in a positive way. First of all, it concerns Croatia that has a very high unemployment rate and rising prices for food and housing. The situation is grim in Bosnia and Herzegovina lacking political stability and where the situation is forced by the EU. The most difficult situation is in Serbia that had to independently recover from the bombing and that is under a lot of pressure from the EU because of Kosovo," said Irina Rudneva. She also added that in Serbia and Montenegro there has been a recent sharp increase of cancer cases, which is a consequence of the NATO bombing in the 1990s.

Lyuba Lulko

Pravda.Ru

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