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%.
[6] The German population will then make up no more than 0.8% of people in the world. In such an interconnected world, individual countries will therefore find it increasingly difficult to uphold their prosperity and social security provisions. Globalisation reduces the capacity of individual countries to levy corporate taxes and finance their social security systems.