Among EU Member States, Malta recorded by far the highest population increase – 41.7%, Eurostat Statistics show. 

Malta was then followed by other EU countries who experienced an increase including Luxembourg (19.7%), Cyprus (13.7%), Ireland (12.1%), and Sweden (9.5%).

On the other hand, according to data, the largest decreases were recorded in Bulgaria (-7%), Latvia (-6.4%), Romania (-5%), Croatia (-4.4%) and Italy (-1.9%).

It was also recorded that Malta experienced a low death rate (7.3%), in comparison to Bulgaria which experienced the highest death rate (15.5%).

Overall, on 1 January 2020, the population of the EU including 27 Member States was recorded at 444.7 million, down by 12.8% as compared with 513.5 million in 28 Member States on 1 January 2019. This decrease is mainly due to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom which led to a decrease of 13% in the EU population.

The natural change of the EU population has been negative since 2012, with more deaths than births recorded in the EU (4.7 million deaths and 4.2 million births in 2019).