Brussels, 17 January 2023
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,
Together with my colleague Commissioner Ferreira we are presenting to you the initiative on Harnessing Talent in Europe’s Regions.
Alongside this initiative we are also presenting the second Report on the Impact of Demographic Change in the EU, which updates the demographic trends identified in the first report from 2020, taking Brexit, Covid and the Russian aggression in Ukraine into account.
Concretely, the Report presents various long-term demographic trends with respect to life expectancy, mortality and migration and their impacts on population ageing, household composition, trends in the labour market, territorial cohesion and poverty and social exclusion.
In addition to the policy challenges stemming from these trends, it also identifies the benefits and opportunities these trends offer certain sectors of the economy and of society.
I introduced this demography report, as it provides the context for our harnessing talents communication.
Here some data to illustrate this: Between 2015 and 2020, the working age population has decreased by 2.5 million persons.
We can expect a further decline of an additional 35 million persons by 2050.
This presents an enormous challenge as it means that these regions do not provide over sufficiently skilled and educated workers to address emerging challenges stemming from demographic change.
Our communication zooms in on the regions most affected by the loss of skilled people, which seriously threatens these region’s long-term prosperity.
You will see that our communication identifies 82 regions representing together 30% of EU population. One third!
We divide these 82 regions in 2 categories, represented in 2 colours, the red and the yellow.
The first – red – group is a group of 46 regions that account for 16% of the EU’s population and face a rapid decline of their working age population and a low share of university graduates, which makes it difficult for these regions to innovate and improve their productivity.
The second – yellow – group is a group of 36 regions that are acutely affected by the loss of their younger population (aged 15-39).
This group accounts for 13% of the population of the EU.
Both groups face specific structural challenges, such as:
1. Inefficiencies in their labour market
2. Inefficiencies in their training and adult-learning systems
3. Low performance in the areas of innovation, public governance or business development
4. Low access to services.
All this can lead to, what we call, a talent-development trap.
This means that regions do not provide over a sufficient amount of working age and appropriately skilled and educated workers to mitigate the impact of population decline and population ageing.
Equipping these regions to face these emerging challenges requires higher productivity, more innovation, and workers with the right skills.
We are therefore proposing a talent booster mechanism with our communication.
The purpose of this mechanism, and of its 8 pillars, is to very concretely help unleash the talents of these regions.
We will support them in training, retaining and attracting people, the skills and the competences needed to meet the new challenges of the demographic transition.
My colleague Commissioner Ferreira will present this mechanism to you in more detail together with the cohesion policy rationale behind this communication.
To conclude, I would also like to mention that this Communication is a flagship initiative of the European year of skills!
Our communication shows once more how important and tangible demographic change in Europe has become and how relevant it is for all our policies.
Thank you very much.