Crises of the early XXI century and the geodemographic system of Europe

Abstract

The paper analyzes the impact of the 2008-2010 financial and the 2015 refugee crises on evolution of the European geodemographic system. Four groups of European countries, (a) the core, (b) the «old» semi-peripheral, (c) the «new» semi-peripheral, and (d) the peripheral are subdivided. Dispersion analysis has shown the increasing influence of the centre-peripheral distinctions in Europe on the rate of population growth over the last twenty five years. With the exception of the peculiar cases, such distinctions explain as much as 55.6, 59.7 and 70.7 per cent of the total dispersion in the rate of population growth among European countries in the periods of 1990 to 2000, 2000 to 2010 and 2010 to 2014, respectively. Also, the central-peripheral distinctions in Europe manifest themselves in the close and statistically significant positive cross-countries correlation between per capita GNI (PPP) and net migration rate. In addition, close negative correlation between per capita GNI (PPP) and crude mortality rate have been observed. The 2008-2010 financial crisis was especially severe in the «old» semi-peripheral countries and initiated the re-orientation of migration flows from Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain to economic core of Europe. The extraordinary inflow of refugees in Germany in 2015 is in a sense a culmination of this trend. While re-orientation of the migration flows caused by the crises displays that European geodemographic system has got the inbuilt mechanisms of self-regulation, these mechanisms cannot completely balance the risks for EU integrity caused by 2015 migration crisis. This crisis puts on the agenda the painful issue of reconsidering the mutual obligations between the core and the peripheral EU countries.