Leaders propose creation of European Alliance to promote family-friendly policies

Rome, Italy, Mar 12, 2007 / 11:45 am

The president of the European Network of the Institute for Family Policy, Lola Velarde, said this week there is an urgent need to create a European Alliance of the Family in response to the current crisis in Europe, which has become an old continent with an increasing number of broken homes.

The purpose of such an Alliance, Velarde said, would be to promote public policies that support the family through agreements between the different European governments, political parties, social institutions that are committed to making the family a political priority in each country.

“The outlook for the family in Europe has worsened in a very serious way: Europe is now an old continent, in fact those older than 65 now outnumber those under 14,” Velarde said during the opening of the European Congress on the Family, which ended on March 10.   

She noted that the lack of young people is due to the fact that “there are less and less children being born and more than 1.2 million abortions” taking place in the 27 countries of the EU.  Abortion, she warned, together with cancer, has become “the greatest cause of death in Europe.”

Regarding the number of marriages, statistics indicate that between 1980 and 2005 they declined to 621,000, falling by 21.8% despite an increase in the population by 34.1 million between 1980 and 2004.  Moreover, in 15 years more than 11 million marriages have failed, affecting more than 16 million children.

Therefore, Velarde said, it is vital public policies that benefit the family be promoted and that the family be saved.