Fewer Romanians emigrating to the UK as Brexit nears

Anca Alexe 17/07/2018 | 08:35

According to data from the UK National Statistics Office (ONS), although in 2017 about 40,000 more Romanians and Bulgarians immigrated to the UK compared to 2016, there is a general declining trend compared to 2014, Mediafax reports.

The general trend of fewer people moving to the UK also applies to other EU member states – for example, the number of immigrants from Germany, Spain, Italy and France dropped from 84,000 in June 2016 to 46,000 in 2017.

The number of Polish, Czech, Slovakian, Slovenian, Estonian, Lithuanian, Hungarian and Latvian immigrants dropped from 42,000 registered before the Brexit vote to 6,000 after the vote.

However, the number of entries to the UK by European citizens is higher than the number of exits, even though there has been a decline of immigration since the Brexit referendum.

In total, the number of immigrants from the EU in 2017 was about 240,000 people. In total, the number of EU citizens living in the UK has reached about 3.5 million people.

The number of EU immigrants was much lower than that of immigrants from non-EU countries, as it has always been. In 2017, the total number of immigrants from non-EU countries was about 311,000 people, following a growing trend.