EU sees some 2.4M new immigrants in 2017

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Some 2.4 million people immigrated to the European Union from non-EU countries in 2017, according to the bloc's statistical office on Thursday.

"In addition, 1.9 million people previously residing in one EU member state migrated to another member state," Eurostat said.

Official report revealed that a total of 4.4 million people immigrated to one of the EU member states, while at least 3.1 million emigrants were reported to have left an EU country.

Eurostat stated that these total figures do not represent the migration flows to/from the bloc as a whole, since they also include flows between different EU member states.

"Among these 4.4 million immigrants during 2017, there were an estimated two million citizens of non-EU countries, 1.3 million people with citizenship of a different EU member state from the one to which they immigrated.

"... Around one million people migrated to an EU member state of which they had the citizenship, and some 11,000 stateless people," the statistical office said.

Eurostat said that a total of 22 countries in the 28-member bloc reported more immigration than emigration in 2017.

"... But in Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania the number of emigrants outnumbered the number of immigrants," it said.

The highest rate of immigration was recorded in Malta with 46 immigrants per 1,000 inhabitants, followed by Luxembourg with 41 immigrants per 1,000 citizens.

On the emigration side, the highest figures were reported for Luxembourg with 23 emigrants per 1,000 persons, and Greek Cypriot administration with 18 emigrants per 1,000 inhabitants.