OREANDA-NEWS. On 1 January 2016, the population of the European Union (EU) was estimated at 510.1 million, compared with 508.3 million on 1 January 2015. During the year 2015, almost 5.1 million babies were born in the EU, while more than 5.2 million persons died, meaning that the EU recorded for the first time ever a negative natural change of its population. The remainder of the change (positive) is driven mainly by net migration.

The most populated EU Member States continue to be Germany (82.2 million residents), France (66.7 million), the United Kingdom (65.3 million) and Italy (60.7 million). Together, they are home to more than half of the EU population.

Population increase in seventeen Member States

During 2015, the population increased in seventeen EU Member States and decreased in eleven.

The largest increase was observed in Luxembourg (+23.3 per 1 000 residents), ahead of Austria (+14.4‰), Germany (+11.8‰), Malta (+11.7‰), Sweden (+10.6‰), Denmark (+8.4‰) and Belgium (+7.2‰). In contrast, the largest decreases were recorded in Lithuania (-11.3‰), Latvia (-8.7‰) and Croatia (-8.2‰), followed by Bulgaria (-6.7‰), Greece (-6.0‰), and Romania (-5.6‰).

In total, the population of the EU increased by almost 2 million people (+3.5‰) during the year 2015.

Germany, France and the United Kingdom with highest demographic weight

Accounting for 16.1% of the total EU population at 1 January 2016, Germany continues to be the most populated Member State, ahead of France (13.1%), the United Kingdom (12.8%), Italy (11.9%), Spain (9.1%) and Poland (7.4%). For the remaining Member States, nine have a share of between 4% and 1.5% of the EU population and eleven a share below 1.5%.