Eight out of 10 European inhabitants are immigrants

Madrid, Spain, Aug 3, 2009 / 10:36 am

The president of the Institute for Family Policy in Spain, Eduardo Hertfelder, noted last week that the population in the European Union has reached 500 million, but he warned that this is due more to immigration than to the number of births, as 8 out of every 10 inhabitants of the EU are immigrants.
 
“It has been a population increase due almost exclusively to immigration and in addition, it has been a population increase among adults that has led to the average age of the European population increasing almost two years in this decade,” Hertfelder said, referring to the fact that Europe has “775,000 less births per year than 25 years ago.”
 
He pointed out that Spain is the country that has most contributed to the increase in the number of inhabitants of Europe, followed by France and Italy, but he noted that of the 6.8 million new inhabitants in Spain, “more than 4.8 million were immigrants, which comprises 72% of the growth.”
 
“In fact, more than four fifths of the growth is due to immigration. Without this contribution from immigration, the population growth both in Spain and the rest of the EU would have almost been insignificant,” he explained.
 
However, he warned, what is most troubling is that in depending almost exclusively on immigration because of the low birthrates in the EU, the average age among Europeans is now 40.3, “that is, the average age in Europe has increased two years in just five years.”