Romania's demographic decline has no foreseeable solution under the current trends, demographer Vasile Ghetau said on Friday at the event 'Population in Figures, the Future in Perspective - World Population Day and 167 Years of Official Statistics in Romania'. He noted that Romania loses 80,000 - 100,000 people annually, with around 150,000 births and close to 250,000 deaths, a pattern he described as structurally stable.

'I see no solutions to Romania's demographic decline. There is nowhere for them to come from. We have an annual natural decrease of between 80,000 and 100,000 inhabitants, coming from a number of deaths of almost a quarter of a million, stable over time, and which cannot decrease. So, if mortality cannot fall, the number of births is, in recent years, around 150,000, with no signs of recovery. In other words, we will continue to have a natural decrease of almost 100,000, slightly below. We do not know what has happened with net external migration,' Ghetau said.

Tudorel Andrei, president of the National Institute of Statistics (INS), said that in the medium term Romania can aim only at stabilising the negative natural increase, not reversing it.

Professor Dumitru Sandu also argued that there is no miracle solution to demographic decline, but stressed that other European countries - Portugal, Spain, Ireland - have managed to recover. He outlined a multi-parameter approach involving migration, governance and data quality.

'There is no miracle solution for reducing demographic decline, but Romania is not unique on the European map. We had Portugal, Spain, Ireland, which made a comeback from demographic decline. The solution is multi-parameter. Among other things, people come to the country and leave again because there is too much corruption and they don't like it. We need, first, the use of European funds to bring people back with jobs and so on. Second, we need more detailed statistics. Currently, the data available put together immigrants from Asia and Romanians returning to the country. I need to know how many are Romanian citizens, how many are Afghan citizens, and so on. Third, we need deep reform in the justice system. Many people do not return because they fear for their children's future. You do not bring children into a country that is sick,' Professor Sandu said.

On the question of integrating immigrants, sociologist Gelu Duminica warned that Romania struggles even with long-established minorities, let alone new ones. He pointed to structural gaps such as Romanian-language acquisition for children of immigrants and resistance to systemic change.

'We have problems with historical minorities, let alone with 'new minorities'. We need to reset the system. For example, Romanian as a second language: a child who speaks Sinhala at home enters a Romanian kindergarten and must speak Romanian at the level of a native child, because we have no system to help that child acquire communication in the language of the country. There is huge resistance to changing the system, and Romanian politicians do not think ahead. As background: in 2009 the presidential administration produced a report on demographic and social risks. Professor Ghetau, Professor Sandu and I were part of that commission. Many things we said would happen have happened. The actions we recommended in 2009 are still awaited,' Gelu Duminica declared.

He added that if proper measures had been taken in 2010 - 2011, Romania would already see results, since demographic policy requires long-time horizons. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: George Banciulea; EN - writing by: Simona Klodnischi)