Romanians are main EU immigrants

Romania remains the major immigrant supplying country among the EU member states. These are the results of the report published by the EU Bureau of Statistics - Eurostat.

The number of Romanian citizens who moved to other EU countries in 2008 (the year after Romania's accession to the Schengen agreement) was amounted to over 384 000 people. Thus, 2008 was for Romania the year of the most massive outflow of labor force to other EU countries over the past decade. Such data is provided by the Romanian news agency Actmedia.

The main countries that have received the first wave of Romanian immigration are Spain and Italy. To Italy went up to 46% of the total number of Romanian immigrants, to Spain - 19%.

At the same time, in the following years preferences in selection of countries for those citizens who are seeking for work outside of Romania began to change. More and more people move from Romania to work in Germany and the UK.

Top 10 immigrant supplying countries within the EU:

1. Romania
2. Poland
3. Bulgaria
4. Germany
5. Italy
6. France
7. United Kingdom
8. Hungary
9. Netherlands
10. Portugal

Poland and Bulgaria are also expected to be the leaders. But citizens of these countries have their own preferences in choosing the country for better life. So, in 2008 45% of the 266,000 army of Polish immigrants chose to settle in Germany.

While, Bulgaria, along with the mass exodus of its citizens abroad, faced with increasing illegal immigration, mainly in the south, near the border with Turkey. Here the number of illegal border crossings since the country joined the EU visa-free travel zone increased by 25%.

Among the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, outside the EU, the main stream of immigrants registered in Albania, Ukraine and Russia.