For Greece, the long-term outlook is particularly stark, with official projections pointing to one of the steepest population declines in the EU.
Figures released by Eurostat to mark World Population Day show the EU's population reached an estimated 452 million people on Jan. 1, 2026, an increase of 706,000 from a year earlier. The gain marks the fifth straight annual increase following the population decline recorded in 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Behind the headline growth, however, Europe's demographic picture remains fundamentally weak. Deaths have exceeded births every year since 2012, meaning that net migration has become the sole driver of population growth across the bloc. Without inward migration, the EU's population would already be shrinking.
Over the past decade, the EU added around 8 million residents, rising from 444 million in 2016 to 452 million in 2026. Since 1960, the bloc's population has expanded by 97.5 million people from 354.5 million. Yet the pace of growth has slowed dramatically. During the 1960s, the EU's population increased by roughly 3 million people annually on average, compared with just around 600,000 a year during the 2010s, reflecting persistently low birth rates and an aging population.
Germany remains the EU's most populous member state with 83.5 million residents, accounting for 18.5% of the bloc's total population. France follows with 15.3%, ahead of Italy at 13%, Spain at 11% and Poland at 8%. Together, those five countries account for nearly two-thirds of the EU's population, while Malta remains the smallest member state with about 600,000 inhabitants.
Population increased in 16 of the EU's 27 member states between January 2025 and January 2026. Malta recorded the fastest growth, adding 24.1 residents per 1,000 inhabitants, followed by Cyprus with 13.7 and Luxembourg with 13.1. The sharpest declines were recorded in Latvia, Estonia and Hungary.
For Greece, however, Eurostat's long-term demographic projections paint a far more challenging picture. The country's population is projected to fall from about 10.37 million today to just 7.24 million by 2100, a decline of more than 3.1 million people, or nearly 30% of its current population.
The primary driver is a widening gap between births and deaths. Eurostat projects that between 2025 and 2099, Greece will record around 4.33 million births compared with 9.36 million deaths, leaving a natural population decline of roughly 5 million people.
Net migration is expected to remain positive over the same period, with inflows totaling approximately 1.9 million people by the end of the century. Even so, migration would offset less than half of the country's projected natural population loss, leaving Greece on a path of sustained demographic contraction.
The projected decline carries significant economic implications. A smaller and older population is expected to intensify pressure on the labor market, pension system and healthcare spending, while weighing on the country's long-term growth potential, highlighting one of the most pressing structural challenges facing the Greek economy in the decades ahead.
