At the end of 2021, there were 566.000 Albanians registered in the countries of the European Union, not including Greece, according to statistics published by the European Union.

Most of them are in Italy, where by the end of 2021 were registered 433 thousand citizens, or 76% of the total declarations of Eurostat (excluding Greece).

Eurostat has not published data for Greece, but together with Italy, it remains the country that has hosted more citizens for years, at similar levels to Italy.

In the last three years, the number of Albanians living in European Union countries has increased by almost 30 thousand people. What is clearly noticed is the new tendency to flee to Germany. Out of 30 thousand people who have managed to register in an EU country in the last three years, about 27.3 thousand of them have fled to Germany, bringing the total to almost 77 thousand people, the third after Italy and Greece for the total number of Albanian citizens living in an EU country.

France is the second country after Germany that has seen the highest increase of Albanian citizens with about 8500 people that have been added, to a total of 33 thousand people. Unlike Germany, where people who have an employment contract generally go and as a result are registered as residents, in France the number of asylum seekers is much higher and as a result may not appear in the registrations of non-EU citizens living in France. https://www.monitor.al/aplikimet-per-azil-nga-shqiptaret-ne-2021me-shume-se-gjysma-ishin-ne-france/

For the same period, the number of Albanians in Italy has decreased by about 7 thousand people. Italy remains the main host country with about 433 thousand Albanian citizens.

Less than 7,000 people are registered in other EU countries. France is followed by Belgium (6,807), Sweden (6,184) and Austria (3,038).

Germany, which is facing restrictions in the domestic labor market, is attracting citizens from all over the world, including Albanians, in recent years. Specialties such as doctors, nurses, information technology specialists are among the most sought after professions in Germany.

Other Eurostat data, which are available until 2020 show that the residence permits that Germany has issued to Albanian citizens have increased significantly starting from 2018. In that year over 10 thousand Albanian citizens were provided with permits for lived and worked in Europe's largest economy. In 2019, their number exceeded 12 thousand. In 2020, despite pandemics and severe restrictions on movement, about 8,300 residence permits were issued.

(Source: Monitor)