Eurostat: 622 thousand Albanians have received residence permits in the EU in the last decade

There are 622 thousand Albanians who in the last decade (2008-2018) have received a residence permit in one of the countries of the European Union, according to data published by Eurostat and processed by Monitor. The highest number of permits was granted in the period 2008-2010, where the record is in 2008 with almost 100 thousand ALL, to decrease to 75 thousand in 2010, which coincides with the high emigration of that time.

Afterwards, a significant drop in permits was noted, where the minimum was reached in 2013, with about 31.2 thousand permits. The revitalization of the immigration cycle also marked the increase of permits in the following years, reaching in 2018, with about 62.5 thousand such, the highest level since 2010.w

According to the countries, the record is held by Italy, with 308 thousand permits issued in the last decade, or about 50% of the total. In second place is Greece, with 224 thousand ALL (36%). From both of these countries, there has been a significant decrease in residence permits in recent years compared to the period 2008-2010. (see the graphs of permits from Greece and Italy).

In contrast, a significant increase in recent years has been recorded by Germany, which has granted a total of 28 permits, of which 10 were granted in 2018 alone. Germany has recently become a favorite destination for Albanian professionals, since due to the lack of qualified labor force, Europe's largest economy is attracting nurses, IT, engineers (see the chart below, residence permits issued by Germany) . The United Kingdom is in fourth place with over 3 permits per year during 2017-2018 (almost 20 in total). Next is France, with 10.7 thousand permits, where in the last two years, about 2 thousand permits were granted per year.

Permits granted in 2018 increase by 20%

In the European Union for 2018 alone, 62,525 residence permits were granted for the first time to Albanians, marking an increase of 20% compared to the previous year. In 2017, according to data published by Eurostat, about 51 thousand residence permits were granted. In Italy and Greece, Albanians are the first population in terms of the number of permits granted. Thus, Greece has granted a total of 35,571 residence permits to foreigners, of which 16,900 were granted to Albanians, or about 47%. While in second place are China with 12.7% and Georgia with 6.9%.

also Arberi 22 May 2019 867 thousand Albanians with a residence permit in the EU

In the other neighboring country, Italy, a total of over 238 residence permits were granted, where Albanians were also in first place with 23,147 residence permits, or 9.7% of the total, followed by Moroccans with 20 residence permits and Nigerians with nearly 15 thousand permits. A total of 3,2 million residence permits have been granted throughout the European Union. Most of them were given for family reasons with about 28.4% of the total, while in second place are employment reasons with about 27.5% of the total, followed by schooling reasons or about 20%, while other reasons occupied about 24%.

As for the permits granted to Albanians, in 2018, about 34 residence permits were granted for family reasons, where people who work and live in the EU receive their family members as well. In second place are residence permits for employment reasons, where the EU granted 9900 permits, about 76% more than a year ago. Permits granted for other reasons totaled 15597 residence permits, or 245 of the total. While for education reasons in 2018, they gave 2587 permits. About 65% of the permits in total were in Italy and Greece, while a significant weight was occupied by the permits granted by Germany, which constituted about 17% of the total permits./Monitor