February 12, 2003	Wednesday	Zul Hijjah 10, 1423

PARIS, Feb 11: Will Europe continue to forge ahead over the next half-century becoming a major superpower, or will it fall seriously behind the United States and Asia? It’s a question addressed in a soon-to-be-published report for the European Commission by a prominent French think-tank, IFRI, the Institut Francais des relations internationales.

Indeed, IFRI warns that if Europe does not begin soon to introduce policies designed to better define immigration policy and encourage greater technological innovation, it could soon become the world’s third-ranking power - allowing itself notably to be surpassed by Asia - both in terms of population and in the strategic sectors of cultural, technological, economic and military might.

Among the principal recommendations put forth by Philippe Colombani, the project director for IFRI, and “coordinator” of the EC-commissioned report, concerns the need for Europe to “define a European immigration policy” that would help redress a situation which sees at present every woman bear on average only 1.4 children, a situation that Mr Colombani says has to be especially changed in countries like Spain and Italy which, he says, are “in their demographical winters.”

If nothing is done soon with regard to immigration, he adds, then Europe can in no way expect to see its part of global wealth increase beyond its present 22 per cent share, indeed, he notes, if the situation remains where it presently is, then by the year 2050 Europe’s share could plummet to 12 per cent.

With regard to immigration, recommends Mr Colombani, “Europe should stop immediately viewing demography in Malthusian terms,” that is, according to the idea that population increases faster than the means of subsistence and that the growth should be controlled mainly through sexual restraint.

That day is over, notes Mr Colombani, referring to a theory spawned by the British clergyman T.R. Malthus more than two centuries ago - notably in a seminal 1798 work, Essay on the Principle of Population - and should be replaced by immigration policies which could bring to Europe new blood capable of providing the continent with a renewed economic dynamism.

Otherwise, he warns, the active population of the thirty principal European countries will decrease from 331 million at present to 243 million by the year 2050, whereas that of the ALENA countries (essentially the United States, Canada and Mexico) will increase, over the same period of time, from 269 million to 355 million. As for Asia, or the part of the world that the IFRI report refers to as Greater China (China+Taiwan+Singapore), its own active population would increase from 876 million at present, to 1.009 billion in 2020, but would fall again to 898 million by 2050.

But besides redirecting population flows, notably out of Africa, which, Mr Colombani’s report says, will be Europe’s “essential challenge,” the European continent will also have to adopt other measures, among them the creation of a system of innovation, a sector in which the United States already holds a considerable advance.

Part and parcel of better confronting this challenge, notes the report, will be establishing greater “transmission” between fundamental research and the European system of production, especially in such industries as the life sciences, indeed encouraging the creation of European transnational corporations “capable of competing with the Anglo-Saxon giants,” although Mr Colombani does not seem to address the oft-posed and inevitable question of whether transnational enterprises, when they attain a certain size - whether they are headquartered in New York or Paris - have really any identifiable nationality to speak of any more.