Over 22M non-EU citizens live in bloc

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - Some 22.3 million citizens of non-EU member states were living across the bloc as of Jan. 1, the EU's statistical office announced Friday.

Eurostat said the number of people living in the member states with citizenship from a non-member country represented 4.4 percent of the EU population.

Official figures also said there were 17.6 million people living in one of the bloc's member countries with citizenship from another EU member state.

"In most EU Member States, the majority of non-nationals were citizens of non-EU countries," the statistical office said.

Eurostat said Luxembourg is the country with the biggest share of non-nationals, accounting for fully 48 percent of its total population.

"A high proportion of foreign citizens (10 percent or more of the resident population) was also observed in [Greek] Cyprus, Austria, Estonia, Malta, Latvia, Belgium, Ireland and Germany.

"In contrast, non-nationals represented less than 1 percent of the population in Poland, Romania and Lithuania," it added.