How many non-EU citizens live in the European Union?

On January 1, 2020, 23 million third-world citizens were living in an EU member state. It means 5.1% of the population of the European Union. This was stated by Eurostat, noting that there are 13.5 million non-EU citizens living in one of the member states of the European Union with the citizenship of another member state of the European Union, and they represent 3.0% of the population of the European Union.

The lowest share is in Poland and Romania

Relatively speaking, the European Union member state with the highest percentage of foreign nationals is Luxembourg (47% of its total population). A high proportion of foreign nationals (10% or more of the resident population) is also observed in Malta, Cyprus, Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Ireland, Germany, Belgium and Spain. In contrast, foreign nationals represent less than 1% of the population in Poland and Romania.

UK citizenship applications boom.

But the most interesting data is that of applications for citizenship. Always according to data released by Eurostat I have finished 706,000 people acquired citizenship from one of the 27 European Union countries in 2019 (They numbered just over 672,000 in 2018 and over 700,000 in 2017). Most of them were previously citizens of a third country (and thus citizens from outside the European Union), while only 13 percent actually possessed the citizenship of another member state. The right to become a citizen of a member state of the European Union also means the right to acquire European citizenship And enjoy the neighboring rights.

The data is from 2019 but as can be seen from the chart below, it is clear how the flow of mini-immigration from the UK began with a route to Europe before Brexit. To use absolute numbers, there are 29,800 new EU citizens from the United Kingdom. The vast majority (75%) chose Germany, Sweden and France. In general terms Thus, the United Kingdom moved from the seventh place among countries for citizenship applications in one of the European Union countries to the third place.