Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has accused other European leaders of fuelling climate change panic by ignoring the problem of falling birth rates, according to Politico.
“Europe is acting out of fear and fear makes us defeatist. We say there’s no future, and as such, this is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Along with Central and Eastern European countries, Hungary is struggling with a falling birth rate. All EU countries have less than 2 children per woman, which is not enough to maintain a stable population.
Governments face the challenge welfare financing, since the number of older people increases and the proportion of people of working age falls.
At the Budapest Demographic Summit, a pro-family conference organised by the Hungarian government, Orbán acuse “Western elites” of the ignoring demography issue and being preoccupied with “carbon quotas.”
They require people to live in fear of an approaching Armageddon.
Orbán government invests about 5 per cent of the country’s GDP in family building policies. It finances tax breaks and subsidised loans for building new homes. As a result, Hungary’s birth rate is no longer the lowest in the EU, as it was 10 years ago.
On Thursday, the Hungarian leader went further. Women with three children would be exempt from paying taxes for life – previously it was necessary to have four children for exemption.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who attended the two-day summit, praised Hungary’s family policy. She also noted that demographic changes pose an existential risk for her country.
“In our view, demography is not just another of the main issues of our nation. It is the issue on which our nation’s future depends. We need the courage to say that demographers’ projections for the future are very worrying.”
In Europe, depopulation has been a problem for decades. Today, it is attracting more and more attention, especially in Silicon Valley. Like the Italian Prime Minister, Elon Musk also praised Orbán’s efforts.
Hungary’s president Katalin Novák, who organised the conference, echoed Orbán’s message of misguided European priorities.
The demographic winter is turning into an Ice Age.
