(10 July 2019) – On 1 January 2019, the population of the European Union (EU) was estimated at almost 513.5 million, compared with 512.4 million on 1 January 2018. The population change (positive, with 1.1 million more inhabitants) was due to net migration.
With 83 million residents (or 16.2% of the total EU population at 1 January 2019), Germany is the most populated EU Member State, ahead of France (60 million, or 13.1%), the United Kingdom (66.6 million, or 13.0%), Italy (60.4 million, or 11.8%), Spain (46.9 million, or 9.1%) and Poland (38 million, or 7.4%).
The largest population increase was observed in Malta (+36.8 per 1 000 residents), ahead of Luxembourg (+19.6‰), Ireland (+15.2‰), Cyprus (+13.4‰), Sweden (+10.8‰), Slovenia (+6.8‰), Belgium (+6.1‰), Spain and the Netherlands (both +5.9‰) and the United Kingdom (+5.6‰). In contrast, the largest population decrease was recorded in Latvia (-7.5‰), followed by Bulgaria and Croatia (both -7.1‰), Romania (-6.6‰) and Lithuania (-5.3‰).
Ireland (with a natural change of its population of +6.1‰) remained in 2018 the Member State where births most outnumbered deaths, ahead of Cyprus (+4.1‰), Luxembourg (+3.2‰), Sweden (+2.3‰), France (+2.2‰), the United Kingdom (+1.7‰) and Malta (+1.6‰).