One of the perverse joys of the EU’s so-called demographic crisis (there would be none, by the way, if Europe’s politicians could bring themselves to postpone the retirement age by a few years, a rather small price to pay for a little elbow-room in what is already an overcrowded continent) are the ‘remedies’ that people have come up with to cure it.

In one corner, we have the natalists with their bulging, bursting families and just a suggestion, just the tiniest hint, of Kinder Küche Kirche in their baggage, and then in the other we find the true kings of the lunatic asylum, those politicians (and EU bureaucrats) who want even more immigration into their shambles of a ‘union’. There are jobs going begging, apparently, and immigrants can fill them.

The Pub Philosopher is not quite so sure:

“We keep being told that Europe needs more immigrants to fill the jobs vacated by our ageing populations. That is one of the excuses that our governments give for the increased levels of immigration across Europe. So why do all the European countries have high unemployment among certain immigrant communities? ”

Now, we could argue with the alehouse sage about this a little. Or, indeed, a lot. To start with, much of the ‘immigrant’ unemployment is amongst the children or grandchildren of immigrants. Moreover, some of this unemployment is, undoubtedly, the product of lousy schools and unfair discrimination and is thus, in some sense, something that has transcended the usual laws of labor supply and demand. Nevertheless, his core point is dead on. While there may be specific skill shortages in Europe (some of which may need a short term fix), there are no people shortages.

Immigration is not the answer. Education is. Multiculturalism isn’t. Integration is.