Number of Eastern Europeans Migrating to Germany Rose in 2015

More Albanians, Bulgarians, Croatians and Romanians left their homeland to seek a better life in Germany in 2015 than those who did in 2014, German national statistics show.

The year 2015 was historic for Germany in terms of migration, according to the data.

A total of 2.1 million immigrants arrived in the country in 2015, a 46% year-on-year increase (by 672 000), Die Welt newspaper quotes national statistics as saying.

As many as 998 000 left the country, or 9% more than in 2014 - also a historic number. Net immigration last year therefore amounted to 1.139 million people.

While the vast majority of the arrivals were related to the refugee crisis, there was also an increase of the number of migrants from Eastern Europe. Some 45% of migrants were EU nationals, while 13% came a non-EU European country. Thirty percent were from an Asian state and only five percent had African documents. 

Only 121 000 of the arrivals had German documents (ethnic German born elsewhere and nationals who had lived abroad).

As many as 298 000 of the arrivals were Syrian, 66 000 more than the 2014 numbers. There were 80 000 Afghans (11 000 more), 60 000 Iraqis (4000 more) and 20 000 Pakistanis (70 000 more).

The biggest increase is noted in the arrivals of Albanians, which quadrupled (47 000, up from 12 000).

Bulgarians who left their country for Germany were 40 000, up from 35 000.

Romanian immigrants were 92 000 (compared to 80 000 in 2014).

As many as 40 000 immigrants from Croatia arrived in Germany in 2015, up from 25 000 the year before.

The number of Serbian nationals immigrating to Germany dropped to 7000, down from 15 000.

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