Gloomy outlook: Hungary’s population could fall to 7 million by 2050?

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Budapest. Source: Pixabay

Zsolt Németh, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, told the Hungarian News Agency MTI that “Hungarians are dwindling, so the government must also focus on ensuring that as many Hungarians as possible “remain Hungarian” or “become Hungarian”.

Hungarians could fall back to 8.5-9 million

“We are shrinking quite dramatically in the Carpathian Basin (…) We are facing a period when the number of Hungarians here in the Carpathian Basin will be such that in our lifetime, including Hungarians abroad, we will be 8.5-9 million,” Zsolt Németh said at a panel discussion at the Rákóczi Szabadegyetem in Sátoraljaújhely, Telex reports. He added that the population within Hungary’s borders could fall to 7 million by 2050 if trends do not change.

Hungarians across the border are also dwindling

He also described the census data and demographic indicators from across the border as extremely depressing:

  • In Transylvania, the number of Hungarians has fallen from 1.6 million to 1 million in thirty years;
  • In Felvidék (Upper Hungary), the decline is 20 percent;
  • In the Southern Land (Délvidék), the Yugoslav wars have decimated the Hungarian population;
  • And in Transcarpathia, Németh said, “we don’t know what is happening”, but there is at least a 40 percent decline.

Hungary’s population could have been even smaller

Németh and his interlocutor, State Secretary János Árpád Potápi, also agreed that if Hungarians had not come to Hungary from beyond the borders in the 1990s, the population of the 93,000-square-kilometre area would be under 9 million today. According to the panelists, the government’s family policy has not yet changed this situation.

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