by Giles Merritt*
It’s risky to predict anything nowadays, but it seems safe to say that when Ursula von der Leyen steps down in late 2029 after ten years as president of the EU’s executive commission she’ll have left a considerable mark. She will also hand on a toxic legacy.
Europe’s ageing is an explosive timebomb, and the European Commission is doing remarkably little to defuse it. The excuse is that the policies needed to soften ageing’s impact and address its soaring costs are largely national, and thus in the hands of member governments.
This is unconvincing, not least because one of the most dangerous aspects of demographic decline is that it is hitting EU newcomer states in central and eastern Europe the hardest, and thus risks tearing the Union apart despite the economic convergence efforts of the last 20 years.
The scale of the ageing problem is well illustrated if set against Von der Leyen’s scheduled decade in office. When she arrived in Brussels, a third of the EU’s population was over 65 years old, and when reappointed last year that proportion had risen to 35 per cent. It will be close to 42 per cent when she leaves office, by which time she will herself be aged 72.
The scale of the ageing problem is well illustrated if set against Von der Leyen’s scheduled decade in office. When she arrived in Brussels, a third of the EU’s population was over 65 years old, and when reappointed last year that proportion had risen to 35 per cent. It will be close to 42 per cent when she leaves office, by which time she will herself be aged 72.
By mid-century, half of all Europeans will be over-65, and by 2100 almost two-thirds. This shrinkage of the EU’s productive workforce scarcely bears thinking about, and indeed that seems to have been the reaction of Europe’s political leaderships.
The choice to head the EU executive of a woman who, furthermore, had not first achieved prime ministerial rank raised eyebrows in Europe and around the world. Yet Von der Leyen is arguably the first commission president whose communication skills have made her a global household name.
Her handling of the COVID-19 crisis and the Ukraine conflict won plaudits, and her management of day-to-day policy issues has been sound. The gaping hole in her agenda, however, is the demographic upheaval that although still in its earlier stages is fast gathering momentum.
Two members of the Brussels commission include age-related responsibilities in their portfolios – Croatia’s Dubravka Suica has demography as part of her Mediterranean overview, and Malta’s Glenn Micallef lists ‘intergenerational fairness’ along with youth activities and sport. Neither has the budget and a directorate-general to suggest determined EU policy initiatives are in the pipeline.
What evidently is needed is that the commission should rally member states behind the EU’s banner to coordinate their responses to ageing. There’s an array of forward-looking measures all 27 should be implementing, and Brussels should be sounding the alarm as loudly as it can to support EU governments’ introduction of policies that have often been dismissed as unnecessary expenses.
Estimates of the cost of ageing vary from country to country, so are best summed up by the EU’s dependency ratio – the balance between working age people and retirees. The average during the last century was a healthy one of four taxpaying workers for each pensioner. When Ursula von der Leyen was appointed in 2019 it had already sunk to 2.9:1, by 2050 it will be 2:1 with an obviously unaffordable 1.7:1 projected for 2070.
There are ten areas where national policies in the EU must be far more closely aligned. These would highlight best practices and promote the switching of longstanding convergence policies like infrastructural support for poorer countries to focus instead on demographic challenges. Healthcare in general, especially for the elderly, is a soaring expense that will soon be so overwhelming it demands a Europe-wide re-think.
So, too, are policies to counter declining fertility, and that means housing, childcare, low waged jobs, tax breaks for younger people, and the overhaul of public and private pension schemes. The list also includes immigration, because only a switch away from the ever-higher walls of ‘Fortress Europe’ to a far more positive recruitment of newcomers will make ageing affordable.
A first step for the commission could be to borrow from tactics developed for its own green agenda. Europe’s colour coding of a building’s carbon footprint could be adapted to give an at-a-glance picture of how well each member state is preparing for ageing. What’s needed from the Brussels executive is the same vigour and commitment it summoned 40 years ago to champion the Single Market in the teeth of opposition and obfuscation from some of the more protectionist member governments.
The European Union won’t recover the élan of those days if it allows itself to sink gently into old age. Ursula von der Leyen must widen the bandwidth of her agenda with an Action Plan to re-think and rejuvenate the policy areas that hold the key to Europe’s future.
*Founder of Friends of Europe
**first published in friendsofeurope.org
By: N. Peter Kramer
