Timebomb

Ageing is a timebomb. We celebrate our greater longevity, yet few of us consider its consequences. This book is an important warning that unless Europeans defuse its explosive force, within two decades our societies will be devastated by it.

The hard fact is that because our political economies have been built around shorter lifespans, they risk being blown apart by ageing. The pressures exerted by the over-60s, who are increasing from today's quarter of the population to a third, will upend our politics and impoverish our young.

Millennials and Gen-Zers are already saddled with their elders' runaway pension and healthcare costs, but are themselves poorer and less privileged. Merritt, a veteran analyst of the European scene, traces the demographic projections that politicians of all persuasions have long ignored, and shines a harsh light on policy shortcomings that must be urgently addressed.

For anyone wants a stake in our future, this book is essential reading which clarifies the political choices to be made if comparatively prosperous Europe isn't to die of old age.

Since his 1978 arrival in the 'Capital of Europe' as a correspondent of the Financial Times, Giles Merritt has specialised in Europe's policy challenges as a journalist and think-tanker. He's often hailed as a 'Brussels institution' by readers of his incisive and often critical commentaries on European politics and economics.

In 1999 he founded the 'Friends of Europe' think tank, and in 2010 the Financial Times named him among thirty 'Eurostars' who most influence debates on Europe's future course.

Giles Merritt writes his fortnightly 'Frankly Speaking' commentaries for 'Friends of Europe' and is also a Senior Associate Fellow at Belgium's Egmont Institute. This is his fifth book, with earlier ones that include World Out of Work, an award-winning study of unemployment (Collins 1982), and Slippery Slope: Europe's Troubled Future (Oxford University Press 2016), which was shortlisted for the European Book Prize .