Foreigners account for less than seven percent EU population

Foreign citizens accounted for fewer than seven percent of people living in EU member states in 2014, Eurostat said.

The statistical office of the EU published data on foreign citizens on the occasion of Friday's International Migrants' Day, Xinhua reported.

The data showed that EU member states had 506.8 million residents as of the beginning of 2014, of which 472.8 million were nationals and 34.1 million foreign citizens.

In total, foreign citizens made up 6.7 percent of the total EU resident population.

Luxembourg had the highest proportion of foreign citizens in the EU at 45.3 percent, followed by Cyprus, Latvia, Estonia, Austria, and Ireland.

By contrast, Poland, Romania, Croatia, Lithuania and Bulgaria all registered that foreign citizens were below one percent of their respective populations.

The largest group of foreign residents in each member state was generally composed of citizens of another EU country.

Polish citizens were registered among the five main citizenships of foreigners in 10 member states, Germans in nine and Italians and Romanians in eight each.