In Greece, a new report has stated that the population decline in the country has reached alarming levels, and it could become the world’s first country to suffer “population collapse”. The report claims that heart failure, stroke, blood clots and cancer among otherwise healthy young people have caused the mortality rates to skyrocket in Greece.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called the prospect of population collapse a “ticking time bomb” and a “national threat”.

Greece’s birth rate fell by 30 per cent from 2011 to 2021 to under 84,000 per year, slipping below the death rate, according to the country’s national Hellenic Statistical Service, also known as ELSTAT.

The OECD also projects Greece’s population to fall from 10.4 million last year to just over 10 million in 2030.