The results of the latest study carried out by Eurostat on the number of foreign residents living within the EU has found that foreign residents living in Spain account for 12.3% of the total population which is nearly double the average figure for the EU as a whole (6.4%).
The results of the study which are published today show that up to 1st January 2009 there were 31.9 million foreign residents living within the EU, 11.9 million of which were EU citizens living in another EU country.
In Spain the total number of foreign residents was found to be 5.65 million people out of which 2.27 million (5%) were from other EU countries while 3.37 million people (7.4%) had arrived from non EU countries.
Out of the whole of the EU 2.4% of the population (11.94 million citizens) are EU citizens living in an EU country other than their own while 4% of the population of the EU (19.9 million) come from non EU countries.
After Germany (with 7 million foreign residents) Spain has the largest number of foreign residents living within its borders followed by the United Kingdom, France and Italy.
The EU countries with the least number of foreign residents are Bulgaria (23,800) and Malta (18,100).
In proportion to the total population Luxemburg has the largest group of foreign residents (43.5%) and Latvia (17.9%) while the number of foreign residents in Bulgaria account for just 0.3% of its total population with this figure falling even further for Poland (0.1%).
As far as EU citizens living in EU countries other than their own the largest group is made up of Rumanians (2 million) followed by the Polish (1.5 million) and Italians (1.3 million).
The largest groups of non EU citizens living within the EU are Turks (2.4 million), Moroccans (1.8 million) and Albanians (1 million).
According to Eurostat the average age of foreign residents living in the EU is significantly lower than the average for national citizens at 34.
3 years old compared to 41.2 years old except for Estonia, Latvia and Poland.
The most notable differences between the average age of foreigners and national citizens was found to be in Italy (32.3 compared to 43.9), Finland (33 compared to 42.1) and Denmark (32.1 compared to 41).
