34m foreign citizens live in EU

In 2012, 34.3 million foreign citizens lived in the 27 EU Member States, accounting for 6.8 percent of the EU population, according to figures released Wednesday by Eurostat, the EU's statistical office. This foreign population included 13.6 million EU citizens living in another EU Member State, 2.7 percent of the EU population, and 20.7 million non EU citizens, 4.1 percent of the EU population. In 2012, the largest numbers of foreign citizens were recorded in Germany (7.4 million persons ) , Spain (5.6 million ), Italy and the United Kingdom (both 4.8 million ) and France (3.9 million). The total EU population is around 500 million. Meanwhile, Eurostat said that the level of education has a significant impact on the risk of poverty in Europe. In the EU in 2011, almost one quarter of the population aged 18 or over with a low education level was at risk of poverty, compared with 14% of those with medium education and 7% with high education. In all EU Member States, the lowest risk of poverty was registered for persons with a high education level.