On March 18, 2005 the Latvian news agency LETA reported that Mr. Vladimir Spidla, EU commissioner for employment and social affairs, has asked member states of the EU to begin discussions concerning demographic changes in Europe because all aspects of our lives will be affected as by the year 2020 EU will lack 20.8 million people of working age or 6.8 percent of total population.
It has further been reported that, according to "Eurostat" prognosis, by the year 2050 Latvia's population will have reduced by 19.2 percent 's from 2.3 million to 1.8 million, and this would have been the greatest percentage reduction of any member nation of the EU.
I would suggest that for the understanding of the problem it helps to note Andris Zeidaks' definition that in population increase there are four phases 's birth, maintenance, upbringing and education. The last three 's maintenance, upbringing and education 's can be influenced by money, and therefore all politicians, demographers and scribblers enthusiastically spend millions, real and imagined, on them claiming that this money is being spent for fostering birth rate. The latest of these is the Latvian government's promise to increase social benefits to young mothers. Experience shows that the rate of birth cannot be influenced with money. This is because children will be born only if parents so desire, and not for any other reason.
This means that there is only one way to change the path to demographic catastrophe in Europe, and that is by persuasion. By gentle persuasion using propaganda and by not so gentle persuasion by an appropriate taxation system. To establish and monitor such persuasion system it is necessary to create an Authority of Birth Rate Improvement, and unless that is done Latvia will cease to exist as a nation, followed by all other nations of the EU.
Jekabs Ziedars
Australia
