Parallel Workshop Session: Workshop 1.2 Demographic Change Petri Kahila, TIPSE ESPON Internal Seminar 2012 “Territorial Development Opportunities in Europe and its Neighbourhood Fostering Global Competitiveness”

Main Territorial Trends 2 There are differences not only between individual MS but also groupings of MS – especially East- West contrast EU policy documents acknowledge spatial distribution of poverty over ESPON space but indicate only that social phenomena vary over space We have to bear in mind that regions are not excluded but people or groups of people On the other hand, definition of poverty is often biased The Fifth Cohesion Report recognises multidimensional aspects of poverty

There is a clear spatial differentiation of poverty in Europe Poverty is more rural issue the new MS and urban issue in the old MS The close connection between rural and urban poverty is partly related to rural-to-urban migration Main Territorial Trends (2) 3

Developments in Europe’s Neighbourhood 4 External border regions of the EU generally share common problems in terms of peripherality and questions of their future development as they suffer from low work intensity, unemployment, low economic diversification and out-migration Specially Northern regions of the Eastern border confront challenges of demographic change, sparse population and social exclusion On the other hand, child dependency rate is clearly higher in the neighboring countries like in Turkey

Further Co-operation and Integration 5 Growing importance of co-operation and integration may increase cross- border mobility and thereby allow more employment possibilities in border regions Advanced employment possibilities will create more wealth as people will have access to cross-border labour markets. However, danger might be stronger out-migration from the border regions that might produce difficulties because of fallen economic vitality. These factors have to be taken into consideration in the cohesion policy as they may cause additional cost to the local and regional level compared to the more densely populated areas.