Recent migration trends: Citizens of EU-27 Member States become ever more mobile while EU remains attractive to non-EU citizens

In 2006 about 3.5 million persons settled in a new country of residence in the EU-27, according to Eurostat estimates. After rather rapid growth in 2003 compared with 2002, the rise in immigration slowed in the last few years. The biggest rise in immigration was in Ireland and Spain. Compared with the small increase in total immigration, more citizens of EU-27 Member States were migrating: the number of EU-27 citizens migrating to Member States other than their own country of citizenship increased by 10% per year. Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom received more than half of all immigrants in the EU-27. While the vast majority of immigrants in the EU-27 settled in the big Member States, the scale of immigration was greater for smaller countries. There were relatively more non-EU than EU citizens among immigrants: of some 3 million non-national immigrants to the EU-27, more than 1.8 million were not citizens of EU-27 countries. Poles and Romanians were the most numerous immigrants among citizens of EU-27 countries while Moroccans ranked first among non-EU citizens. Half of all immigrants were younger than 29 years old. Immigrants who were not EU citizens were younger than those who were EU-27 citizens (including nationals). There were more men than women among immigrants and the women were younger than the men. Compared with other countries women are more frequent among immigrants in the south of the EU.