EU Information >> EU Demographics

• 0-14 years: 16.3% (74 374 592 people)
   

• 15-64 years: 67.2% (306 624 084 people)
   
• 65 years and over: 16.6% (75 743 449 people)

(July 2004 estimate)


Births & Deaths

• Birth rate: 10.2 births/1 000 population
   
• Death rate 10 deaths/1 000 population

(July 2004 estimate) the birth rate will increase in the next 30 years

[ TOP ]

The European Union as a whole has a high life expectancy.

• Total population: 78.1 years
   
• Male: 74.9 years
   
• Female: 81.4 years

(July 2004 estimate)

Immigration & Emigration

There are currently more people immigrating into the European Union than there are emigrating from it. Immigration is a controversial issue in some member states such as the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

In other countries such as Portugal, the issue is less controversial, possibly due to the fact that many Portuguese emigrated themselves in the recent past (1960's-1980's).

This figure is for immigration and emigration into the European Union, and therefore excludes any internal movements between member states.

• 1.5 migrants/1 000 population (July 2004 estimate)

[ TOP ]

Europe has two coutries that have a majority European muslim population.The first one is Albania ,the second one is Bosnia Herzegovina.There are also many countries that have a large muslim european minority.Serbia has a muslim population of 18%,Macedonia has a muslim population of 40%.Theese muslims are not immigrants but europeans that converted to islam during the middle ages.

[ TOP ]

The languages of the European Union are languages used by people within the member states of the European Union. They include the twenty official languages of the European Union (with Irish due to gain this status on 1 January 2007) along with a range of others. The EU asserts on its English language homepage: "languages: Europe's asset".

EU policy is to encourage all its citizens to be multilingual; specifically, it encourages them to be able to speak two languages in addition to their mother tongue. A number of EU funding programmes actively promote language learning and linguistic diversity, but the EU has very limited influence in this area as the content of educational systems remains the responsibility of individual Member States.

According to the EU's English language website, the cost of maintaining its policy of multilingualism is €1.123 billion, which is 1% of the annual general budget of the EU, or €2.28 per person per year.

The official languages of the European Union, as stipulated in EEC Council: Regulation No 1 determining the languages to be used by the European Economic Community of 1958-04-15 (as amended), are:

• Czech
• Danish
• Dutch
• English
• Estonian
• Finnish
• French
• German
• Greek
• Hungarian
• Italian
• Latvian
• Lithuanian
• Maltese
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Slovak
• Slovene
• Spanish
• Swedish

Further languages are due to become official languages of the European Union:

• On January 1, 2007:
  • Irish [5] [6]

• On the accession of Bulgaria and Romania:
  • Bulgarian
  • Romanian

All languages of the EU are also working languages. Documents which a Member State or a person subject to the jurisdiction of a Member State sends to institutions of the Community may be drafted in any one of the official languages selected by the sender. The reply shall be drafted in the same language. Regulations and other documents of general application shall be drafted in the twenty official languages. The Official Journal of the European Union shall be published in the twenty official languages.

Legislation and documents of major public importance or interest are produced in all 20 official languages, but that accounts for a minority of the institutions' work. Other documents (e.g. communications with the national authorities, Decisions addressed to particular individuals or entities and correspondence) are translated only into the languages needed. For internal purposes the EU institutions are allowed by law to choose their own language arrangements. The European Commission, for example, conducts its internal business in three languages, English, French and German, and goes fully multilingual only for public information and communication purposes. The European Parliament, on the other hand, has Members who need working documents in their own languages, so its document flow is fully multilingual from the outset

[ TOP ]