On January 1, 2016, Eurostat recorded the population of the European Union at 510.1 million people, compared with 508.3 million on January 1, 2015. During the year, there were 5.1 million babies born in the European Union, though more than 5.2 million people died in the first case of a negative natural change of population. The positive change came through the net migration. The most populated EU member states continue to be Germany (82.2 million people), France (66.7 million), the United Kingdom (65.3 million people) and Italy (60.7 million people). These countries made up more than half of the EU population.
The figures released ahead of World Population Day (July 11) showed that there was a population increase in seventeen EU member states and decreased in 11.
The largest increase was observed in Luxembourg (+23.3 per 1 000 residents), ahead of Austria (+14.4 percent), Germany (+11.8 percent), Malta (+11.7 percent), Sweden (+10.6 percent), Denmark (+8.4 percent) and Belgium (+7.2 percent).
In contrast, the largest decreases were recorded in Lithuania (-11.3 percent), Latvia (-8.7 percent) and Croatia (-8.2 percent), followed by Bulgaria (-6.7 percent), Greece (-6.0 percent), and Romania (-5.6 percent).
In total, the population of the EU increased by almost 2 million people (+3.5 percent) during the year 2015.
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