EU-Policies and Fertility: The Emergence and Implementation of Fertility Issues at the Supra-national Level

The paper deals with policies and fertility at the European level. During the past decade demographic and fertility issues have come to the fore at the European Union level. The Green Paper “Confronting demographic change: a new solidarity between the generations”, the establishment of an expert group on demographic issues, the European Demography Forum, and the European Demography Reports are signs of the gain in importance of fertility issues at the EU level. So far, the competences to deal with fertility issues have been mainly with the member states. It is not clear whether the EU initiatives mark the emergence of a new policy field within the EU or whether established policy issues are given a new framing. This paper traces the origin and development of fertility relevant initiatives at the European level starting with the Treaty of Rome in 1957 up to the present. It analyses the processes of the development, the motivations of the initiatives, the implementation at the European level, and the consequences for fertility relevant policies at the level of European member states. It thus allows us to determine to what extent the EU initiates are steps towards a co-ordinated European effort to tackle low fertility.