The EU's baby blues

The BBC reports:

Europe's working-age population is shrinking as fertility rates decline. In a fit of gloom, one German minister recently warned of the country "turning the light out" if its birth rate did not pick up.

Efforts to encourage couples to breed have a chequered history and, for many, recall fascist pasts. Mussolini heavily taxed single men in his Battle for Births, Hitler awarded medals to women with large families in his quest for a superior German race.

No-one is yet berating bachelors or mooting medallions for multiple births. But Europe's many governments are scrambling to find a solution.

The welfare state is the culture of death.