GETTY The report is entitled Replacement Migration: Is It a Solution to Declining and Ageing Populations?

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The radical report, titled ‘Replacement Migration: Is It a Solution to Declining and Ageing Populations?’ advocates an influx of immigrants as a means of supporting an ageing population. It projects that over the next 50 years the population of several western countries, including the UK, Germany, France and Italy, will steadily decline unless measures are taken to reverse the trend. Penned in 2001, the report has resurfaced in the wake of the migrant crisis sweeping Europe. It reads: “The new challenges of declining and ageing populations will require comprehensive reassessments of many established policies and programmes, including those relating to international migration. “Focusing on these two striking and critical population trends, the report considers replacement migration for eight low-fertility countries... and two regions.

“Replacement migration refers to the international migration that a country would need to offset population decline and population ageing resulting from low fertility and mortality rates.” The two regions the report focusses on is Europe and the European Union. When breaking down migration into the European Union, it hypothesised the EU would need an extra 612,000 people per year between 2000-2025, and 1.3 m per year from 2025-2050 to prevent the overall population declining. It adds: “The annual numbers of immigrants who would be needed to prevent the population of working-age from declining are about double the numbers received in the last decade.

GETTY The two regions the report focusses on is Europe and the European Union

The new challenges of declining and ageing populations will require comprehensive reassessments of many established policies and programmes UN

“If one wishes to keep active support ratios at levels closer to what they are currently, without large numbers of immigrants, serious consideration would have to be given to increasing active participation in the labour force beyond the age of 65 years.” The report states that if the current situation continued unchanged some countries would see their entire population decrease by a quarter or one third. In order to support the older generations the retirement age would need to be raised to 75.

GETTY Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has come under fire fore her 'open door' policy

Recent figures from Eurostat, the statistical arm of the European Union (EU), revealed that without migration Italy's population will plummet by 10 million, from 60.6m to 51.5m by 2050, raising Italy's average age to 53.7. The Italian minister for regional affairs, Enrico Costa, called the figures a "doomsday scenario" and has urged more to be done to promote domestic birth rates.

Jungle Migrant Camp in protests Mon, October 3, 2016 Up to 10,000 migrants are now living at the camp and are using desperate and violent measures to try and board trucks heading for the UK. Play slideshow REUTERS 1 of 24 Demonstrators protest near the area called the

He advocated Italy adopting more policies to promote domestic births, adding: “We need structural measures”. The politician added national plans of individual EU states were not enough to reverse the decline in home births, but EU-wide policies are needed.

The report itself advocates an overhaul of policies geared towards immigration. It says: "The new challenges being brought about by declining and ageing populations will require objective, thorough and comprehensive reassessments of many established economic, social and political policies and programmes."

GETTY The EU would need an extra 612,000 people per year between 2000-2025

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has come under fire fore her 'open door' policy for migrants, which has seen hundreds of thousands settle across the country. More than one million people have headed to Europe since last year, dubbed the migrant crisis, with national governments' varying in their response.