(20 November 2013) – On 1 January 2013, the population of the EU28 was estimated at 505.7 million, compared with 504.6 million on 1 January 2012. This means that the population of the EU28 grew by 1.1 million in 2012, an annual rate of +2.2 per 1 000 inhabitants.
The highest natural growth of the population (the difference between live births and deaths per 1 000 inhabitants) was registered in Ireland (+9.5‰), well ahead of Cyprus (+5.2‰), Luxembourg (+4.0‰), France and the United Kingdom (both +3.8‰). Twelve Member States had negative natural growth, with the largest falls in Bulgaria (-5.5‰), Latvia (-4.5‰), Hungary (-3.9‰), Lithuania (-3.5‰), Romania (-2.7‰) and Germany (-2.4‰).
In 2012, around 80% of the increase in the EU28 population came from migration. In relative terms, Luxembourg (+18.9‰), Malta (+7.4‰), Italy (+6.2‰), Sweden (+5.4‰) and Austria (+5.2‰) had the largest net inflows, while Ireland (-7.6‰), Lithuania (-7.1‰), Latvia (-5.8‰), Estonia (-5.7‰), Greece (-4.0‰), Portugal (-3.6‰) and Spain (-3.5‰) recorded the highest net outflows.
The population increased in seventeen Member States and decreased in eleven. The largest relative increases were observed in Luxembourg (+23.0‰), Malta (+9.1‰), Sweden (+7.7‰), the United Kingdom (+6.2‰), Belgium (+6.0‰) and Austria (+5.2‰), and the largest decreases in Lithuania (-10.6‰), Latvia (-10.3‰), Estonia (-6.8‰), Bulgaria (-5.8‰), Greece (-5.5‰) and Portugal (-5.2‰).