Eurostat projects EU population falls by 53 million by 2100

Eurostat now projects the EU’s population will shrink by 53 million people by 2100, falling from about 452 million in 2025 to roughly 399 million, according to figures cited by Euronews.

The decline is not evenly spread. Eurostat’s projections show steep falls in parts of eastern and southern Europe: Latvia is projected to lose about a third of its population by the end of the century, with Lithuania and Poland close behind; Greece is also projected to fall by around 30%. Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Hungary are projected to lose roughly a quarter or more. Germany, Portugal, Estonia, Czechia, Finland and Slovenia are projected to fall by around a tenth to a fifth.

A smaller group of countries is projected to grow. Luxembourg, Iceland and Malta top the list in percentage terms, while Switzerland, Ireland, Norway and Sweden are also projected to expand. Demographers interviewed by Euronews point to one factor that separates the two groups more than fertility or mortality: net migration.

Tomas Sobotka of the Vienna Institute of Demography told Euronews that differences in past and projected migration, combined with age structure, largely explain why some countries keep growing while others contract. Countries that have seen outmigration for decades tend to have fewer people in the prime childbearing ages, meaning even a modest fall in fertility translates into a sharper long-run decline. Anne Goujon, also at the Vienna institute, said that with fertility low across the EU, sustained immigration can still keep populations rising beyond mid-century in places such as Luxembourg and Malta.

Dmitri Jdanov of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research described the arithmetic bluntly: current fertility levels do not maintain the population size, so natural decrease becomes the baseline unless migration offsets it.

The projections also imply a much older Europe. Euronews notes that by 2100 one in three Europeans is expected to be over 65. That shift changes the budget math of welfare states built on large working-age cohorts: fewer contributors, more recipients, and a growing share of public spending tied to pensions and health care.

For labour markets, the headline number hides a more immediate constraint: the working-age population shrinks long before the total population does. Countries with weaker inflows of migrants face a choice between higher taxes, reduced benefits, later retirement, or attempts to import workers at scale—often while housing, schools and local services are already under strain.

The Eurostat tables are projections, not fate. But they show that for many member states the main variable being adjusted is not births or life expectancy, but how many people arrive and stay.

Eurostat’s baseline assumes an EU that is smaller, older and increasingly shaped—country by country—by migration balances rather than birth rates.