According to UN data, more than four million Romanian citizens live in the western half of Europe, which is approximately 18 percent of the entire Romanian population. In Hungary, the emigration rate is much lower, around six percent, i.e. a third of the Romanian figure - explained Zoltán Csányi, spokesperson of the CSO, at the conference of the Oeconomus Economic Research Foundation.
While immigration can partially offset natural weight loss in Western European countries, the opposite is true in the Carpathian Basin region, "here we encounter enormous emigration rates in proportion to the population," explained Zoltán Csányi, spokesperson of the Central Statistics Office (KSH).
The extent of Romanian emigration is well illustrated by the fact that, according to UN data, "more than four million Romanian citizens live in the western half of Europe, which is approximately 18 percent of the entire Romanian population," said the specialist.
The data comes from 2020, since then the emigration rate may have increased considerably.
About a month ago, the incumbent Romanian Prime Minister made a statement that 6.5 million Romanians work in Western Europe
– István Loránd Szakáli, the strategic director of the Oeconomus Economic Research Foundation, has already highlighted this. According to UN data, emigration to Croatia is even worse than Romania in terms of population, and Poland is also affected by the problem to a large extent.
Hungary is somewhat of an exception in this regard. Here, the number of emigrants is around 6 percent of the population, according to UN data
- said Zoltán Csányi, adding that in 2020 "around 700 thousand Hungarians who were born in Hungary lived abroad".
Demographic and competitiveness crisis in Europe
The round table was preceded by the speech of Miklós Panyi, the Parliamentary and Strategic State Secretary of the Prime Minister's Office, in which he highlighted that the European Union is lagging far behind in terms of competitiveness, and that population decline is an increasingly serious problem.
In order for a country's population to remain unchanged, it must reach a fertility rate of 2.1.
One of the very serious crises in Europe is that this [fertility] indicator has been well below 2.1 not only for a few years, but also for several decades
warned the state secretary.
Ádám Csepeti, the Deputy State Secretary responsible for strategic affairs of the Prime Minister's Office, emphasized that demography and competitiveness are closely related. If many people work in a country, then the tax revenues, which are largely made up of labor taxes and consumption taxes, flow more stably into the budget. We will experience the exact opposite if the population decline continues, and the lack of professionals is already a problem.
Featured image: Joshua Woroniecki/Pixabay
