Former Minister for European and Foreign Affairs Evarist Bartolo took to Facebook on Wednesday to express his concern at the fact that Malta’s population will increase to 668,000 by the year 2050.
Bartolo stated that, if this were the case, we would be the country with the highest rate of population increase in the European Union, aside from already being one of the most densely populated countries in the world.
“Meanwhile, we are amongst the European countries with the lowest birth rate. Maltese women have the lowest fertility rates at 1.14%. In 2020, 4,414 babies were born in Malta, with a third of them born to mothers not born in Malta. In 1950, 10,281 babies were born”, Bartolo shared.
The politician went on to highlight that 98,918 of the current 443,803 population are foreigners living in Malta, accounting for 21% of the population. Bartolo discussed the fact that despite some calling it a ‘foreign invasion’, a lot of foreigners come to Malta to work because there aren’t enough people to fill the ever-increasing amount of jobs.
He went on to ask; “if we complain about foreigners working amongst us and we don’t increase the birth rate, isn’t it obvious that more and more foreigners come to work amongst us?”
He concluded by asking “what shall we do to increase our birth rates? Should we have more children from Maltese couples? If so, what can we do to help them?”
What do you make of this?
#MaltaDaily
