Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Barcelona (Agenzia Fides) - Yesterday, 26 September, in Barcelona, Spain Lola Velarde, President of the European network of Family Policy Institutes (IPF), presented the 2007 Report on the Evolution of the Family in Europe. One year ago IPF presented its first such report to the European Parliament. Since then two more countries have joined the EU and some indicators such as family policy, changed. This is why this new updated report prepared by a multidisciplinary team of experts, highlights and analyses the more important family related indicators, starting with information supplied by various international bodies.
The report warns about Europe's "demographic winter", its marginal growth in the last twenty years, unequally distributed, with a clear drop in population in eastern European countries. In the Europe of 15 countries, population growth is due mainly to immigration with a rate of 80 per cent. The continent is expected to begin to fall in population numbers in 2025, and society is older, with more people over 65 than under 14.
One cause of a drop in the birth rate in Europe is the tragedy of abortion: every year 1.2 million unborn babies are not allowed to live: one abortion in every five pregnancies. Also to be considered the drop in the number of marriages, 22 per cent in 20 years, and people marry ever later, at an average age of 29. Another additional cause is the increase in divorces, one every 30 seconds, and almost 2 million babies born out of wedlock every year.
Lola Velarde said " in recent years problems facing families in Europe have become worse " and "Europe is losing the battle for the family", and she presented some answers offered by European institutions, IPF especially. Thanks to Germany EU presidency and with the help of the EU Ministry for the Family, awareness has grown especially in the Economic and Social Council (CEYS) which encourages the centrality of the family dimension in social and economic policies. However the European Commission has neither an office for family policies nor an Observatory nor a White Paper on the Family. Awareness is also unevenly distributed in some countries, some have a Family Ministry but in others family policies only come third. IPF, proposes indispensable social, economic, cultural measures to plant in Europe an authentic "family perspective". (RG) (Agenzia Fides 27/9/2007; righe 35, parole 494)
