Perhaps some “environmentalists” may see a positive side when a population, civilization declines somewhere: less space is needed for people and fewer resources are consumed.
I sometimes smile at the fact that in the Benelux countries, France, or Germany, populations are growing, while elsewhere stagnation is taking place.
If immigrants and war refugees were also to leave, as many politicians suggest by appealing to widespread public sentiments, the population would decline by another roughly 10%. In an ironic sense, I have also thought that both mentally and because of a reduced population, this could become a political tool and might even help some countries in the event of a potential invasion.
This is about Czechia, where the population is declining, and Western Europe, where populations are growing and civilization in progress. I recently wrote about Rotterdam, where construction continues on a large scale, and about Luxembourg as well. In Czechia, less is being built partly because there are fewer people to build for, including as a consequence of migration policy.
Czechia is among the countries that have experienced a long-term population decline. The number of births is lower than the number of deaths, and demographic projections indicate that without sufficient migration, the Czech population will decrease over the long term.
On the other hand, Western Europe has growing populations. Countries such as Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and, in recent decades, Germany have managed to offset population decline caused by low birth rates through immigration.
According to Eurostat, since 2012, the European Union’s population growth has been almost entirely dependent on positive net migration, which compensates for the natural decrease in population. Migration policy has therefore become one of the main factors shaping demographic development, alongside strong economic growth, as seen for example in Luxembourg.
In Germany, people with a migration background already account for approximately one-third of the population; in the Netherlands, nearly one-third; in Belgium, up to 40 percent; and in Luxembourg, the majority of the population consists of people born abroad or their descendants.
