The 2019 edition of the ‘People on the Move’ publication published by Eurostat yesterday has noted that while 85.9% of Malta’s population hold Maltese citizenship, a total of 14.1% (made up of other EU citizens (8.1%) and non-EU citizens (6%)) do not.
The EU average stood at 92.2% nationals, 3.4% other EU citizens, and 4.4% non-EU citizens.
Malta is in fifth place, behind Estonia (85%), Austria (84.2%), Cyprus (82.6%), and Luxembourg (52.1%) in terms of its foreign population.
The report showed that from the 512 million persons living in the EU in 2018, 7.8% had a nationality other than their country of residence – 3.4% had a citizenship of another EU member state, and 4.4% of a non-EU member state.
In 2017 it was observed that immigrants with a non-EU citizenship accounted for 46% of immigration, while 30% were persons with a citizenship of another EU member state and 23% were nationals going back to their country of origin.
2017 also saw 1,973 individuals granted citizenship in Malta, with the top three nationalities gaining said citizenship being British (195), Saudi Arabian (342), and Russians (464).
Close to one million individuals were granted citizenship when the total number of all member states is put together, with the top three nationalities gaining said citizenships being Indians (73,287), Albanians (126,336), and Moroccans (169,143).
The statistics also show that 8.3% of Maltese tertiary education students are studying abroad, which is close to the EU average of 8.1%. Hungary is at the bottom of the list, with 2.9%, while Luxembourg holds first place, with a staggering 49%.
Across the EU, around 114 000 bachelor graduates and around 78 000 master graduates had benefitted from the Erasmus programme in 2017.
When it comes to employment for those with a citizenship of another Member State than the one they were living in, Estonia, Malta and Cyprus have the largest number of non-EU nationals, at 13.1 %, 9.4 % and Cyprus 7.6 % respectively.
Transport data shows that 82.6% of passengers in Malta rely on passenger cars, while the remaining 17.4% rely on passenger coaches or buses. The EU average for reliance on passenger cars is 82.9%
Malta is in third place in the ranking on the number of cars per 1,000 inhabitants. In fact, the data shows that in Malta there are 613 cars per 1,000 inhabitants. The lowest is Hungary, with 355, and the highest Luxembourg, with 670.
In 2017, just over one billion air passengers in total were recorded in the EU. Almost half (47 %) were passengers flying within the EU, 36 % flew to destinations outside the EU, while the remaining 17 % took national flights within the same country.
The total number of air passengers in the EU grew by 30 % between 2008 and 2017.
The number of air passengers carried in Malta in 2017 was just over six million.