Albanians top WB countries with most EU residence permits approved in 2017
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- Neighboring Italy occupied the first place on the list, with 19,100 residence permits issued for Albanians, with Greece following suit with 16,468 permits. Germany and France took up third and fourth place, with 6100 and 1180 issued permits for Albanian respectively.
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TIRANA, Oct. 26 - The latest data published by the European Institute of Statistics showed Albanian citizens are the biggest beneficiaries of EU-countries’ residence permits from the Western Balkans region during 2017.
According to Eurostat, 51,685 Albanian were issued residence permits in the EU during 2017.
Neighboring Italy occupied the first place on the list, with 19,100 residence permits issued for Albanians, with Greece following suit with 16,468 permits. Germany and France took up third and fourth place, with 6100 and 1180 issued permits for Albanian respectively.
The number of permits during 2017 marks a light drop in numbers as opposed to a year before, when there was about 59,000 residence permits issued to Albanian citizens.
The EUROSTAT data showed about 29,000 of the residence permits were issued to Albanians for family reasons, while 2,000 were given for education purposes and 5,000 for working purposes.
Meanwhile, Kosovo came third among the WB region for the highest number of issued residence permits in EU countries. During 2017, EU countries issued 26,000 new residence permits for Kosovo citizens, mainly for family reasons.
Albanians have continued to leave the country in alarming numbers through the last years and EUROSTAT data time and time again testified to that. According to consecutive EUROSTAT studies, more than half a million Albanians (19,5% of the population) have been issued EU residence permits during the last decade.
The year 2008 marked the highest number of residence permits issued for Albanians, with approximately 99,000 residence permits, while 2013 marked the lowest number, with about 31,000 issued permits.
Albania’s population, although still one of Europe’s youngest, has been rapidly ageing in the past quarter of a century, with massive migration playing a key role. Albania has around 1.2 million migrants abroad, almost 40 percent of its resident population, making it one of the countries with the highest per capita migration around the world.
Poor compensation, rule of law and inefficient education and health sectors are the main reasons driving Albania’s most productive labour force abroad, in much higher rates compared to most regional countries, except maybe for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
