Greek PM declares ‘national danger’ over birth decline

ATHENS: Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Tuesday said the country´s declining birth rate constituted a “national danger” as data showed the population falling by over a million by 2050.

Greece effectively recorded just one birth per two deaths in 2022, Mitsotakis told a demographics conference, adding that a “national danger is in full evolution”.

“Our people is one of the oldest in Europe. Greek women aged 20 to 40 declined by 150,000 over the past five years,” the PM said. “If we do nothing... by 2050 we could be fewer by up to 1.4 million people,” demographer Byron Kotzamanis, author of a recent study on Greece´s projected population, told state TV ERT.

Mitsotakis´s conservative government, re-elected in June, has formed a separate ministry to tackle family issues and promised to increase child support benefits.

National statistics agency ELSTAT this month announced fewer than 77,000 births last year compared to over 140,000 deaths, the lowest in 90 years. Births fell 10.3 percent compared to 2021, it said.

In 1932, Greece had over 185,000 births and fewer than 118,000 deaths, ELSTAT said. The OECD also projects Greece´s population to fall from 10.4 million last year to just over 10 million in 2030.