The fall of Europe: the bill comes due for leaders who mistook their promises for results

Net immigration has offset the natural population decline, but increasing the number of residents and increasing the number of productive taxpayers are different processes. Formal employment and integration are needed. A serious family policy must also reduce the obstacles posed by housing, employment, and balancing work and family life for those who want children. No population pyramid can be repaired with cheap speeches from the same old politicians.

Talent finds other destinations

The Commission's January 2026 competitiveness report put the Union's productivity per hour, adjusted for purchasing power, at 78.5% of the U.S. level in 2024. Venture capital amounted to just 0.06% of GDP, one-tenth of the U.S. share. That weakness makes it harder to turn knowledge into companies capable of growing.

A Joint Research Centre study published in 2022, using data through mid-2021, identified 40 headquarters relocations abroad among 147 unicorns originating in the EU; 32 went to the United States. The Draghi report reiterated that warning. Relocating a company's headquarters does not mean shutting down all European operations, but it reveals difficulties in retaining companies with great potential.

Switzerland and Sweden still lead WIPO's 2026 innovation index. Europe retains extraordinary capabilities. Precisely for that reason, it is all the more serious that its leaders maintain barriers to putting them to use. Talent and capital seek places where they can grow; they have no obligation to finance any government's nostalgia.

The green transition must answer for its results

According to the IEA, electricity for the Union's energy-intensive industries cost more than twice as much as in the United States in 2025. Germany completed its nuclear phaseout in 2023, following decisions by Social Democrats, Greens, and Merkel's center-right. Retiring firm generating capacity with low emissions while promoting electrification demands answers about costs and alternatives.

Renewables generated 47.3% of the EU's electricity in 2025; nuclear generation supplies another share. Electricity generation still uses fossil fuels, and the transition requires grids and storage. Climate change still has scientific backing. The promise of a cheap and simple transformation must answer for results that have yet to materialize.

The environmentalist left must account for emissions, supply, and the final price. Invoking the planet confers no immunity from bad industrial policy. Imports of electric vehicles made in China also require scrutiny of the footprint of their factories and batteries. Social and environmental responsibility does not stop at the customs border.

Integration requires governance

In 2025, 45.3% of adults with non-EU citizenship living in the Union were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, compared with 18.2% of nationals. Integration must be measured by employment, economic independence, and civic participation. Solemn declarations of intent do not heal a social fracture.

In 2024/25, the United Kingdom spent some £4 billion on support for asylum seekers, including £2.1 billion on hotels. Receiving asylum seekers entails costs that must be acknowledged and funded. Concealing them harms residents and newcomers alike.

Democratic authorities must rigorously control their borders, rule on applications for protection, and demand compliance with the law. Integration requires language skills, work, and shared duties. The left that dismisses those demands weakens the rules of coexistence it is obliged to defend, starting with its own people.

Islamism that seeks to subordinate civil law to religious authority is absolutely incompatible with Western freedoms. Women's equality and freedom of conscience are nonnegotiable. Muslim citizens share the same rights and obligations, including protection against those who seek to impose an orthodoxy on them. Defending the Christian, humanist, and liberal heritage requires institutions capable of protecting it, because that is the legacy of the West's forebears, who gave their lives for the freedoms and rights enjoyed today.

Europe's promise is crumbling

That is why I speak of a fall. The pretense of guaranteeing welfare through obligations without sufficient backing, securing competitiveness by multiplying obstacles, and preserving coexistence without requiring people to fulfill their duties has collapsed. The strengths Europe retains make its leadership all the more culpable. The Western Roman Empire, whose fall is dated to 476, left a warning: a heritage can outlive those who lost the ability to sustain it.