The Ireland Post : EU polls show - only 6 percent of voters in France and 3 percent in Holland said that Turkey was the issue of their no vote

The Ireland Post EU polls show - only 6 percent of voters in France and 3 percent in Holland said that Turkey was the issue of their no vote

Sarkozy, and other right wing politicians in Europe have said that the reason voters in France and the Netherlands said No to the EU Constitution was because they were against the idea of Turkey joining the EU. This is total rubish. Recent EU polls show that only 6 percent of voters in France and 3 percent in Holland said that Turkey was the issue of their no vote

What is really happening to Europe? It is wealthier and healthier than ever before, but is declining to create the human future in the most elemental sense, by looking at the opportunities available for the next generations.

Like it or not, Europeans are disappearing. Demographers say that if Europe's current fertility rate of about 1.5 births per woman persists until 2020, it will result in 88 million fewer Europeans by the end of this century. By 2050,Germany is likely to lose the equivalent of the population of the former East Germany. Over the same period, Spain's population will decline from 40 million to 31.3 million. With the median age of Greeks, Italians and Spaniards projected to exceed 50 by 2050 - roughly one in three people will be 65 or over - the welfare states created in the wake of World War II will plainly require drastic reform.

Deutsche Bank calculates that average workers in Germany are paying about 29 per cent of their wages into the state pension pot, while the figure in Italy is close to 33 per cent. Europe's retired population will ncrease by 55 per cent in the next 25 years, while its working population will shrink by 8 per cent.

Europeans are heading for extinction as surely as the Bushmen of the Kalahari. Another reason to look up and pay attention is to see who is going to fill the gap left by the vanishing Europeans. Either today's newborn Europeans will spend their working lives paying 75 per cent tax rates or retirement and ‘free' healthcare will simply have to be abolished. Alternatively (or additionally), Europeans will have to tolerate more legal immigration.

A youthful Muslim society to the south and east of the Mediterranean is poised to colonise a senescent Europe....and why not, or who else? Since 1970, some 20 million (legal) Islamic immigrants - equivalent to the populations of three EU countries - Ireland, Belgium and Denmark - have settled in Europe. As the demographer Philip Longman put it: “If Europe were a woman, her biological clock would be rapidly running down. It is not too late to adopt more children, but they won't look like her.”