Greece’s rapidly aging population and declining birth rate pose significant threats to country’s ability to grow, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warned Wednesday, as he announced the creation of a national council tasked with reversing the negative demographic trends.
“We are not dealing with a threat to our national identity, but with a direct challenge to the country’s ability to produce wealth on an individual and collective level, thereby sustaining the social fabric that binds people together,” Mitsotakis told a conference in Athens.
“The danger is immediate and significant,” he said adding “only if we look closely at the threat can we face it.
He stressed that the government proposes a multifaceted approach to the issue from financial and fiscal incentives to reverse the braindrain, positive news about new investments to incentives for the cheap housing policy through a comprehensive program.
The PM referred to the issue of integration of legal immigrants in the Greek society in response to the problem of labor shortages in sectors such as the primary sector and construction.
Note that integration of legal immigrants was proposed in 2019 by then PM Alexis Tsipras at plenary session of the Parliament, media recall. “The right-wing of New Democracy had strongly reacted to the proposal with accusations of population alteration.”
“But beware, the new policy will not be done in a way that leaves anyone behind, that is that young Greeks will not be able to find a job, or that there are middle-age working conditions for foreign workers. A country with middle-aged population can be renewed with people who embrace its values and can start a family here and maintain it,” he stressed.
“I am not talking about an easy issue, but we must look at it with responsibility, seriousness and courage, but also with national self-confidence and confidence in a culture that has endured for centuries,” the PM underlined.
Greece’s population is expected to decline over the next 20 years while the ten-year economic crisis accentuated the problem, mainly due to the emigration of 450,000 working age people.
PS It looks as if one of the main issue for the demographic problem is the early closure of kindergartens and primary schools and that’s why the PM announced also that the operation hours will extend to 6 p.m.
Biggest problem I see is a requirement to speak Greek to get citizenship. Immigrants can get around just fine with English and Arabic, so there is no real reason for this requirement but xenophobia! Greece should drop its nationalism!
It’s not that long ago that you could only apply for Greek citizenship if you could demonstrate a Greek bloodline. At least that requirement has gone. Every journey begins with the first step. Try doing the test that foreigners face to get UK nationality. I doubt if many UK born citizens would be able to pass it.
The legacy of the twentieth century is that governments across Europe are terrified of unemployment. They haven’t woken up yet to the fact that not having a sufficiently large workforce is becoming a much bigger problem. Brexit was fuelled by xenophobia and has embedded itself in a government with a highly hostile immigration policy. Every day new sectors are facing labour shortages because the government are happy to let in rich oligarchs but not people who will do the work that needs doing.
To suggest Brexit was fueled by xenophobia has no basis in truth. Brexit was fueled by a democratic vote ,lost by people like you ,won by people who recognise the EU as an undemocratic organisation run by the manufacturing elite of northern Europe for the betterment of plutacrats who care nothing working people .
The vote was simply an expression of people’s opinions. Those opinions were formed in part by people’s intrinsic biasses and in part by the campaigns. The leave campaign stated categorically that Turkey was about to join the EU and when that happened 80 million Turks would be able to relocate to the UK. Nope no xenophobia there?
PS I didn’t get to vote. I am a UK citizen but the UK government ruled that I had no interest in the outcome of Brexit. Personally I couldn’t care less whether the UK is in or out of the EU but I still have an opinion on the consequences.
To be fair i think many people voted the way they did because they felt at first hand the deficits of immigration from the EU, which one could say was caused by the Governments lack of planning (not providing the infrastructure in to support the growth of the population). It is well known that the NHS struggled, GP surgeries were full, hard to get your children in the school you want, increased traffic congestion, increased competitiveness for lots of unskilled or partially skilled work, hard to get a council house, increase in property prices. (I understand that they also added value in many areas). This is what many people felt. These people outnumbered the corporate lobbies who were very happy to welcome a flexible cheap labour pool, and people who are against borders.
UK Population;-
2000 58,886,100
2020 67,081,234
Most of the increased population in the graphic you show ,were working class people from the EU, and after 2004, when rules made by the EU made it possible for free movement, this influx seriously compressing the wages of a perfectly functioning existing working class, resulting in a crash of wages which was never forgotten by the UK working class . Greece needs this influx now but nobody wants to come because off language protectionism used by Greece,Spain and to a lesser degree France to ensure that only indigenous people can rise up the social ladder.
When you look at the government’s own figures. apart from the period 2012 to 2016, net migration to the UK from non-EU countries was always bigger than from the EU. Since 2016 net migration from the EU has fallen markedly but from non-EU countries has risen sharply so that overall it has not fallen. It’s no good giving visas to brain surgeons if you need baggage handlers, strawberry pickers etc. Most of the current UK unemployed are pretty much unemployable. Who is going to do these jobs.
The man speaks total rubbish, to have a functioning society you need to lower income tax to a level which is affordable for working class people, train young People probably to do jobs which have a labour shortages, and most importantly stop telling the youth of the country that they are all potential brain surgeons. Oh, and stop treating working people like rubbish .
6.1 million EU citizens have applied for settled status after Brexit . So Warwick if mike’s figures are correct how can more than half be from non EU countries ?. Not withstanding the people who left and the people who didn’t bother , you live in a middle-class fantasy world, where the impact of such migration has no impact , I am working class and watched my wage drop by 33% in 2005/2006 ,you really think that people will put up with an organisation with no regard for the victims of bad legislation, free movement was a free to all labour exchange designed to fill the pockets of the elite, and now we reap the true results, countries that have lost their workforce to the fat cat factory owners of Germany, these countries will never function properly again.