Eurostat warns: the population of Latvia will decrease drastically

The statistical authority of the European Union “Eurostat” has undertaken to predict the changes in the population of Europe in total and by individual countries, predicting for Latvia such a population that will not be enough for the existence of the country within its current borders and form.

The hope of predicting the future is the main reason why money and many other resources are spent on collecting statistical data in the first place. In most cases, it is about transparently short periods of time. For example, the size of the gross domestic product and the changes in the first 2 quarters of this year will be the basis of what revenues the state can anticipate and distribute in the next year’s budget, so that until the end of the year civil servants will receive salaries, pensioners – pensions, etc. The circulation of people in the form of generational change is much slower than the circulation of money. The newborns should be counted now in order to know what the number of employed people might be twenty years from now and the situation could be changed already during these years by opening the floodgates of immigration or emigration; while the level of employment can be regulated, at least theoretically, by attracting capital to create new jobs, etc.

1.2 million inhabitants in Latvia seems not enough

It is much more difficult to predict how many children will be born to those people who around this time still have very small children or who will be born in the next few years. And then the next assumption is how many children the children and grandchildren of people born now will have. “Eurostat”, however, has taken it upon itself to calculate “what if”. This could translate Eurostat’s caveat to the “what-if” prediction of changes in the European population until the time when those who have just been born or will be born will die, leaving their place for grandchildren whose birth period will end and great-grandchildren whose birth period will begin. The boundaries of the reporting period are rounded to the year 2100. “Eurostat” predicts a decrease in the population in general and finding Latvia as a country whose population will decrease more rapidly compared to 2025 as a reference point than in other countries:

The source of this data is the April 16 news of the “Latest news” section of “Eurostat” with the original title “EU’s population projected to drop by 11.7% by 2100”. So the news that “Eurostat” predicts a decrease of the total population of the EU by 11.7% by the year 2100. There is no breakdown of the reduction by country in the body of the post, but there is a link to the “Database on population projections” with a table, two lines of which have been shortened and moved to “The Independent”.

The body of the post, however, includes disclaimers so that users of the data do not take these numbers as news of the future, that it will be just that and nothing different. If the real numbers in the future differ from the predictions for 2025, then Eurostat’s disclaimer will come into effect, that the 2025 numbers are only a projection of the currently fixed population changes in the future, and not a statement that the current changes will continue without changes. The distinction used in English is that “projections” are not “forecasts”. Users may even take offense at this and accuse Eurostat of admitting to blowing fog, mixing the air and being completely irresponsible for its data.

There are deputies in the Saeima who are really trying

It is an honor that there are people in Latvia who work for the good life paid for by the state, for which no direct payment is required. There are only historical examples of what catastrophes have ended people’s belief in eternal well-being. The ruling circles of Latvia are trying to show that they have not fallen into such a false belief. That is why a Sustainable Development Commission has been established in the Saeima, which must check day by day whether everything in the country is really as good as the members of the Saeima feel. In order to protect this commission itself from falling into complacency, its management was given to Užis Mitrevic, a member of the opposition National Union.

U. Mitrevics justified the trust given to him by opening the April 15 meeting of his commission “on the sustainability of the Latvian pension system” with a reference to “Eurostat” data and further as “Neattkarīgā” has already referred: “Can persons who start working this year and will be able to claim pensions in 2070 rely on first-level pensions?” Thus, U. Mitrevics based his question not simply on the well-known fact that the pension system is a pyramid of money, which does not topple as long as more people deposit money into it than withdraw it. The question was based on figures obtained in a sophisticated way and confirmed by the authority of Eurostat. The train of thought is that the decline in the birth rate reduces first the number of working-age people and, with a long delay, the number of retirees, whose relative increase in relation to the number of working-age people can tip the pension pyramid.

It is good that others are also bad

The Saeima commission are not clairvoyants, who already on April 15 worked with the data, which are now anchored in “Eurostat” news with the date of April 16, 2026. U. Mitrevics referred to one of the previous news releases, since which the real situation of computing has changed much less than its projection in the future. It warns us once again not to confuse forecasts with news that only announces that such and such a forecast is being released now, not that such and such will happen in the future.

To make it more painful for everyone, let’s repeat U. Mitrevic’s comparison of Latvia with Lithuania and Estonia. U. Mitrevics summed up the results of the comparison with the words that they are “incomprehensible numbers for me as a Latvian. How is it that the neighbors are not as bad as us?! We are doing something wrong.”

According to “Eurostat” on April 16, the following population changes in the Baltic States are expected:

From these figures, it is not even clear what the experiences are that the neighbors are doing better. It turns out that in the latest Eurostat forecast, the situation in the Baltics is presented as more balanced than before. U. Mitrevics read the previous forecast, expressing the decrease in the number of inhabitants in the Baltic States in percentages in 2050 compared to 2025. These percentages are different if the population reduction indicators in the April 16 table are converted into percentages for both the 2050 and 2100 border lines:

The order of the Baltic countries according to the rate of population decline has not changed, but the differences in rates no longer make us afraid that everything is bad with us, while things are good with our neighbors. No, at least it’s good that everywhere is almost equally bad.

What future will the people of Latvia choose if they are allowed to?

In Latvia, it is really clear and unambiguous, but in the two other Baltic countries, in practically the same way as here, we will have to answer the question about the transformation of countries after the number of able-bodied people has decreased below the minimum, who can still do the amount of work necessary for the maintenance of the state: the work of the majority allows to collect the amount of taxes necessary for the maintenance of the state apparatus, but there is always a need for individual people who stand out with achievements in politics, sports, art.

The minimum number of population required for the country is not a previously known indicator and falling below it does not cause immediate consequences. A state can continue to exist as long as there is a decorative pretext for its disintegration, which is not the real cause of the disintegration. It should be emphasized here that this sequence of events does not apply to the occupation of the Republic of Latvia in 1940. At that time, Latvia did not have such great internal difficulties (or conflicts, or weakness) from which the occupation would have given an honorable way out. No, the occupation came by itself, regardless of what happened in Latvia.

The population loss reported by “Eurostat” warns that it will become more and more difficult for Latvia to make external forces reckon with such a country. However, it is even more difficult to agree on what the majority of the population of Latvia really wants. The options are to either reforest Latvia or make it as densely populated as Western Europe at the expense of immigration. In the first option, all the 1.2 million people expected by “Eurostat” will probably have to be concentrated in Riga. It would be a cheaper way of living, subsisting on what the country will trade with the air – with CO₂ emission quotas according to how forests growing in Latvia CO₂ will attract Such a system is being created in the European Union, but there are no guarantees that it will be created. An air merchant society may prove too weak against a society with traditional notions of needing to multiply and expand.