In Brussels, the top seven boys names recently were Mohamed, Adam, Rayan, Ayoub, Mehdi, Amine and Hamza. Mohamed is also the most popular name in Holland’s four biggest cities. Is anyone surprised?

Perhaps not, but a recent London Telegraph article suggests, with a certain note of alarm, that a “Muslim Europe” is emerging while policy-makers refuse to discuss the potential problems of this “demographic time bomb”. It reminds one a bit of Inspector Clouseau avowing, “It is not my Behm.”

Adrian Michaels writes that “a recent rush into the EU by migrants, including millions of Muslims, will change the continent beyond recognition over the next two decades…

The numbers are startling. Only 3.2 per cent of Spain's population was foreign-born in 1998. In 2007 it was 13.4 per cent. Europe's Muslim population has more than doubled in the past 30 years and will have doubled again by 2015…

Europe's low white birth rate, coupled with faster multiplying migrants, will change fundamentally what we take to mean by European culture and society. The altered population mix has far-reaching implications for education, housing, welfare, labour, the arts and everything in between. It could have a critical impact on foreign policy: a study was submitted to the US Air Force on how America's relationship with Europe might evolve. Yet EU officials admit that these issues are not receiving the attention they deserve.

The pace of immigration has stepped up since 2002, says an EU report, with net migration into the EU roughly tripling to between 1.6 million and two million people per year.

The increased pace has made a nonsense of previous forecasts. In 2004 the EU thought its population would decline by 16 million by 2050. Now it thinks it will increase by 10 million by 2060. Britain is expected to become the most populous EU country by 2060, with 77 million inhabitants. Right now it has 20 million fewer people than Germany. Italy's population was expected to fall precipitously; now it is predicted to stay flat.

Birth rates, of course, are very difficult to predict; immigrants may adapt to the fertility patterns of their new countries. So far the feared radicalisation of Europe’s Muslims has not occurred, but a British study found that second and third generations of Muslims are harder to integrate than their parents. The reactions of native Europeans might be more of a problem, as the resurgence of far-Right political parties in Europe suggests.

If Europeans want European culture, it looks as though they had better decide quickly what it is and invest in it by reproducing themselves.

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