Given these trends, the EU's role as a market for our products has weakened. At present our exports of goods to the EU and the rest of the world are roughly the same, while our exports of services to the rest of the world are probably above those to the EU. (The geographical composition of services trade is more difficult to track.) Over the four years to the referendum there can be little doubt that the rest of the world will overtake the EU as the UK's largest market, a fact which will be highlighted by those in favour of withdrawal.
The debate on EU membership is for the current generation, but not only for us. In such fundamental matters we are custodians for our children and grandchildren. So what about 2059? Worthwhile estimates of national outputs do not extend to 50 years from now. However, the UN does have a team of statisticians which prepares demographic projections for almost 100 years. Although the population forecasts are beset by uncertainty and open to debate, they are as authoritative as any available.
In recognition of the difficulties, the UN statisticians offer three cases (a high-, middle- and low-variant) for discussion. Let us take the middle variant for simplicity. When the UK joined the Common Market in 1973, Europe without Russia (then of course still the hegemonic power in Eastern Europe) accounted for more than 15 per cent of the world's population. But, according to the UN, by 2059 that figure will be down to 6 per cent, while the citizens of the three big Western European powers with a long-term EU commitment — Germany, France and Italy — will be only 2 per cent of the world's population. The equivalents of Merkel, Hollande and Monti will matter to the politics of their nations in 2059, and they will matter to us as one of their immediate neighbours. All the same, 98 per cent of the world's people will be living in other countries.
The world is changing rapidly. The inevitable result of those changes is that Europe's economic and commercial importance to us will collapse in the 21st century. Of course, free trade between the UK and the EU is to our benefit, and we should try to maintain that if we leave the EU. But the EU's significance in the world at large is falling sharply, and the possible 2017 referendum and the growing debate on our EU membership need to be seen in that perspective.
