Italy has had some of the lowest birth rates in the EU, and the country is ageing at a much faster rate than other European countries.

Addressing the crisis is one of the government's core policies, as well as a top priority of brothers of Italy's EU agenda.

A two-day conference held in Rome offered the chance to discuss what is being described as a cross-party national emergency.

A brief interruption by a group of young activists who attacked the government's anti-abortion measures shows how very politically divisive the debate on this matter still is.

Organisers stressed that a private institution was behind the event, and not the government.

[Speaking in non-English language] It's not a problem that has anything to do with the political side or the other.

This is an issue that concerns everyone and the whole political spectrum, but also all social categories from immigrants to the elderly.

Experts say that if the trend continues, Italy's population of 59 million could fall by almost one million in 2030.

According to recent data released by the Italian National Statistics Office, the average number of children per woman has dropped from 1.24 in 2022 to 1.2 in 2023.

An ageing population causes problems both to the pension and the healthcare systems.

[Speaking in non-English language] One of the main characteristics of the Italian case is that the crisis has been persistent throughout the years. Since 2008 until today, we have lost around 200,000 newborns.

Two-thirds of them are due to the fact that potential parents are missing.

That's because of the decline in births that dates back to 30 years ago.

In 2023 alone, the government allocated around one billion euros for measures aimed at helping women cope with motherhood and work.

[Speaking in non-English language] We are talking about a very difficult challenge of historic proportions for the Western world.

Ideally, Europe should intervene calling for an intergovernmental conference to discuss the matter.

Opposition parties claim the government should do more to increase fertility rates, with experts saying that the latest budget doesn't include enough measures to tackle the problem.

But many agree on one thing:

In the last few decades, governments have failed to build a strategy to address Italy's demographic decline, or at least to prevent the country's birth rate from falling further.

Giorgia Orlandi for Euronews in Rome.