Foreign citizens made up 6% of the EU27 population in 2008

TIRANA, Dec. 16 – Eurostat reported that on January 1, 2008, 30.8 million foreign citizens lived in the EU27 Member States, of which 11.3 million were citizens of other EU27 Member state.
The remaining 19.5 million were citizens of countries outside the EU27, of which 6.0 million were citizens of other European countries, 4.7 million of Africa, 3.7 million of Asia and 3.2 million of the American continent. Foreign citizens accounted for 6.2% of the total EU27 population.
In 2008, 37% of the foreign citizens living in the EU27 were citizens of other EU27 Member states. The largest groups were from Romania (1.7 million or 15% of the total number of foreign citizens from another EU Member State), Italy (1.3 million or 11%) and Poland (1.2 million or 11%).
Among the citizens of countries outside the EU27, the largest groups were from Turkey (2.4 million or 12% of the total number of foreign citizens from countries outside the EU27), Morocco (1.7 million or 9%) and Albania (1.0 million or 5%).
The Member States with the highest percentage of foreign citizens from one single country were Greece (64% of foreign citizens were from Albania), Slovenia (47% from Bosnia and Herzegovina), Hungary (37% from Romania) and Luxembourg (37% from Portugal). In Latvia, 90% of the population of foreign citizens were recognized non-citizens.
This news release, issued on the occasion of the International Migrants Day 2 on December 18, 2009, is based on a report by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, on foreign citizens in the EU27 Member States, Norway and Switzerland. This report presents data either supplied by National Statistical Institutes, or approved by them if estimated by Eurostat.