"When talking about Europe's demography we need to take into account different aspects such as ageing/longer life expectancy, depopulation of rural areas, internal and external migration, brain drain, changing fertility patterns and parenting intentions." Ádám Karácsony, Member of Tahitótfalu Local Government and CoR Rapporteur for the Opinion on Demographic change: proposals on measuring and tackling its negative effects in the EU regions made these remarks during a debate on the impact of demographic change with European Commission Vice-President Dubravka Suica responsible for demography. Karácsony said that long-term decisions made by Member States and the EU and their consistent implementation are of paramount importance for a population-retaining, population-maintaining society and for the future of Europe.
Emil Boc, Mayor of Cluj Napoca reiterated that everyone should be free to move but no one should be forced to leave due to economic constraints. "We need to transform brain drain into brain gain and to do this, the key words are cohesion policy, investment, jobs, quality of life, and innovation." Boc said that the Next Generation EU can serve as an instrument to tackle demographc change. "I believe it's not by chance, that the COVID-19 recovery instrument proposed by the Commission was named Next Generation EU. Next generation means our children and grandchildren. It means our demography." Boc added that cohesion policy is the main tool that the EU has to tackle demographic change as it makes it possible invest in quality public services and enhance economic opportunities especially in cities and regions confronted with demographic change.
Piero Mauro Zanin, President of the Friuli Venezia Giulia regional council and Vice-president of the CIVEX Commission said that supporting is maternity necessary to tackle EU population decline whilst Anna Magyar from Csongrád County Council said that achieving better work life balance for parents and equally distributed caring responsibilities were important targets to aim for to tackle demographic changes.