Europe's irrelevency has been predicted by numerous people in the worlds of academe, punditry, and blogging. (See the below Mark Steyn column.)

http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old&section=current&issue=2003-03-15&id=2882

Now a NY Times article lays it all out for the world to see.

"One study by William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington, predicts that the median age in the United States in 2050 will be 35.4, only a very slight increase from what it is now. In Europe, by contrast, it is expected to rise to 52.3 from 37.7.

The likely meaning of this "stunning difference," as the British weekly The Economist called the growing demographic disparity between Europe and the United States, is that American power -- economic and military -- will continue to grow relative to Europe's, which will also decline in comparison with other parts of the world like China, India and Latin America.

With its population not only aging but shrinking as well, Europe seems to face two broad possibilities: either it will have to make up the population shortfall by substantial increases in immigration, which would almost surely create new political tensions in countries where anti-immigrant parties have gained strength in recent years, or it will have to accept being older and smaller and therefore, as some have been warning, less influential in world affairs.

"The European countries are aging in a world that is becoming younger," Mr. Frey said in a telephone interview. "And in a global economy, they're not going to share in the energy and vitality that comes with a younger population.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/29/international/europe/29AGIN.html

I can see the new EU parliament meeting, "My friends, we have grave choices to make. If we want to keep up our cradle-to-grave welfare programs we're going to have to import wogs* to work and make taxes. Now we all know that nobody wants these smelly wogs ruining our sophisticated cultures -- look at what Americanization has done to us all -- but we simply are not fucking our wives enough to produce enough Europeans to meet our own demand. The problem with wogs, you see, is that wogs aren't European. To put it as bluntly as I can... THEY'RE WOGS. As much as we need them we simply cannot allow the wogs in. They will breed like rats and will take over from within.

"So, one option is to cut benefits for those receiving a social pension. But we can't do that because the people would revolt in the streets. Every industry would be on general strike within a matter of weeks. Not to mention that by cutting welfare benefits for pensioners we are carving the middle out of our own slice of the welfare souffle, and that, too, is not acceptable.

"Then there is the matter of world irrelevance, which the Yanks like to throw in our faces. But here are the current facts. We all see the EU as being a counter to the American hegemony in military and diplomatic affairs. In order to do so we have to drastically increase our military spending. We'll need massive government subsidies to our best contractors to develop our own weapons systems. The amount of this spending is going to be outrageous.

"Not to mention, who will staff such an army? Who in our military, apart from the British, has any real command military experience? Not many. So we promote those with experience to command roles. Who will fill the enlisted ranks? With our median age being 52 years of age, where are going to get the legions of young men and women necessary to build a mighty military?

"Again, we go back to the wogs. But wogs are not the only answer -- oh how I wish they were. We have an aging population, a third-rate military, with the exception of Britain, a cradle-to-grade welfare state that sucks up a huge chunk of GDP, no ability to cut benefits without starting a continent-wide general strike, and nobody to fill junior military and worker roles but as bunch of filthy, stinking wogs that we import from God knows where.

"Gentlemen, this is a situation we need to fix RIGHT NOW. Our global irrelevancy is there as plain as the words on this page. America has beaten us, my friends, and they did it without ever firing a shot."

*WOGS n. derog. acr. Originally an acronym used in the Middle East by colonial forces to identify those who were employed in the service of the government, i.e. Workers On Government Service, but has now become a derogatory term for anyone foreign to British shores or in some cases to anyone "non-white" regardless of their country of birth or nationality. UK