Looking at the aggregate economic performance of EU countries, the EU’s share in global economic output has fallen from around a third in the 1980s to a sixth today. Germany’s share has more than halved over the same period and now stands at around 3%.
And individual European countries will continue to lose their significance in the world, for one because our birth rate is far lower than that of other countries. More than 500 million people now live in the EU, representing 8% of the world’s population. In 2050, this share will have declined to just 5%.