(10 July 2015) – On 1 January 2015, the population of the European Union was estimated at 508.2 million, compared with 506.9 million on 1 January 2014.
During the year 2014, 5.1 million babies were born in the EU, while 4.9 million persons died, meaning that the EU recorded a positive natural change of its population of 0.2 million, double that of 2013. The remainder of the change is driven mainly by net migration.
Germany (81.2 million residents), France (66.4 million), the United Kingdom (64.8 million) and Italy (60.8 million) are the most populated EU Member States. Together, they are home to more than half of the EU population.
During 2014, the population increased in sixteen EU Member States and decreased in twelve. The largest increase was observed in Luxembourg (+23.9 per 1 000 residents), well ahead of Sweden (+10.6‰), Malta (+9.3‰), Austria (+9.1‰) and Denmark (+7.5‰). In contrast, the largest decreases were recorded in Cyprus (-12.9‰), Greece (-8.4‰), Latvia (-7.7‰) and Lithuania (-7.6‰). In total, the population of the EU increased by slightly more than 1 million people (+2.2‰) during the year 2014.
Compared with 1995, Spain (from 8.2% of total EU population in 1995 to 9.1% in 2015, or +0.9 percentage points), France (+0.8 pp) and the United Kingdom (+0.7 pp) were the Member States having increased the most their weight in total EU population, while Germany (-0.9 pp), Romania (-0.8 pp) and Poland (-0.5 pp) registered the largest relative falls.
The highest positive natural change of the population (the difference between live births and deaths expressed per 1 000 residents) was registered by far in Ireland (+8.1‰). Cyprus (+4.7‰), France and Luxembourg (both +4.0‰) and the United Kingdom (+3.2‰) had also notable positive natural change of their population in 2014.