Statistics in Focus: Population and social conditions. Population in Europe 2005: first results.

Abstract

The population in most European countries is still increasing. In 2005 the European Union (EU) population grew by more than 2 million persons. A similar increase was recorded in the Council of Europe area, which now has more than 808 million inhabitants. However, 14 countries reported a decrease in their population, including six EU Member States (DE, EE, LV, LT, HU, PL), the two EU acceding countries and one EU candidate country (see Table 1). The latter (Croatia) is the only country to record a fall in 2005 after an increase in 2004; in all the others, the decrease already observed the previous year continued. The rate of the growth has slowed down from last year. At the current rate (0.4%), the European Union would need 157 years to double its population. The situation varies widely by country: within the EU, if they were to keep up their 2005 growth rate, Ireland and Cyprus would double their population within three decades and Spain in 42 years, whereas within a century Lithuania would halve its population; among the EU candidate countries, Turkey would double in 55 years. In 2050 Turkey would then be by far the most populous country among the EU Member States and candidate countries, followed by Spain and France, whereas in 2006 they are in second, sixth and third place respectively by population size (see Figure 1). In the EU countries, the growth has been mainly due to the contribution by migration, with the exceptions of Denmark, France, Malta, the Netherlands and Finland, where the positive natural change is still the main demographic driver of the population growth (see Table 2). However, migration also contributes to the natural change, given that part of the observed fertility has to be attributed to migrants, who are usually younger and are therefore also assumed to contribute less to mortality than the indigenous population.