Recent migration trends: citizens of EU-27 Member States become ever more mobile while EU remains attractive to non EU citizens
Spain, Germany and UK received more than half of all immigrants The largest numbers of immigrants to the EU in 2006 were recorded in Spain, Germany and United Kingdom. These three countries together received more than 2 million immigrants (including returning nationals). The total number of immigrants recorded in the national registers reached over 840 000 in Spain and over 660 000 in Germany. In the United Kingdom, the number of immigrants identified at the border as intending to stay at least one year was nearly 530 000, according to national statistics. However, among these countries only Spain also had high immigration relative to its population size. The highest rate of immigration was recorded in Luxembourg, followed by Ireland, Cyprus and Spain. These four countries had significantly higher rates compared with other Member States, while for Germany and the United Kingdom, immigration per 1000 inhabitants was close to the EU-27 average.
In 2006, of a total of 3.5 million immigrants to the EU-27 Member States, about 3 million (86%) were foreigners — i.e. they were not citizens of the country to which they migrated. The rest (14%) were nationals returning to their home country. More than half, or in absolute numbers more than1.8 million immigrants, were not citizens of any EU Member State. However, this does not mean that all non-EU immigrants were newcomers to the EU — the number includes immigrants both from outside the EU and from the other Member States. Slightly less than half of all immigrants, 1.7 million, were EU citizens, of whom nearly half a million1 were nationals returning to their own country.
Looking only at foreign citizens, 60% of immigrants were citizens of countries outside the European Union (non-EU immigrants) (Figure 2), while 40% were citizens of other EU Member States. Non-EU citizens were made up fairly equally of citizens of European non-EU countries, Asian, American and African countries, ranging from 13% to 16%, with a few per cent from Oceania or without known citizenship.
Non-EU immigrants were the youngest among immigrants to EU Member States
In 2006, the median age of immigrants settled into the 14 Member States which had data on age distribution was 28.81 (Figure 3). Median age is the age at which exactly half of the immigrants are older and half are younger. Returning nationals, with a median age of 30.6, were the oldest on average, compared with all other immigrants, while other EU citizens migrating to another country within the EU were just half a year younger. In contrast to the quite similar age composition of national and non-national EU immigrants, there was a remarkable difference between the ages of EU and non-EU immigrants. The median recorded age of non-EU immigrants was 27.7, almost three years younger than that of returning nationals and two and a half years younger than that of other EU citizens.
Some details... In Spain Citizens of Number of immigrants Romania 131457 Morocco 78512 Bolivia 77755 Turkey 3831 Germany 2942 In Germany Citizens of Number of immigrants Poland 152733 Turkey 30720 Romania 23720 Hungary 18654 Poland 15237 In the United Kingdom Citizens of Number of immigrants Poland 59771 India 56850 China 25927 South Africa 16213 Australia 26004 In Italy Citizens of Number of immigrants Romania 74463 Albania 46587 Ukraine 41263 Morocco 32369 Ecuador 16987