9 September 2010 / TODAY’S ZAMAN WITH WIRES, ANKARA
Turkish citizens were the largest group of non-European Union citizens living in the EU at the start of 2009, while the biggest group of EU citizens living in another member state was from Romania, the EU statistics office has announced. In total, 31.9 million foreign citizens were recorded in the 27-member bloc beginning 2009, or 6.4 percent of the total EU population, Eurostat said earlier this week.
The largest contingent of foreign citizens chose Germany as home -- 7.2 million people -- followed by Spain with 5.7 million. But the country with the highest percentage of foreigners was tiny Luxembourg with 44 percent, followed by Latvia (18 percent), and Greek Cyprus and Estonia (16 percent). Of the total number of foreigners, 11.9 million (2.4 percent) were citizens of another EU state, and 19.9 million (four percent) came from countries outside the EU --Africa (4.9 million), Asia (4 million), and the American continent (3.3 million).
Citizens of Turkey were the largest group of non-EU citizens with 2.4 million, or 8 percent, followed by Morocco (1.8 million or 6 percent), and Albania (1 million or 3 percent).
