Germany and France have become the two most preferred countries of Albanians who are fleeing to Europe during the last years in the new cycle of immigration, taking the place of Italy and Greece that after the 90s were the two countries that received the highest flow of immigrants. 

Eurostat has published the data on the population with Albanian citizenship living in the countries of the European Union for 2021. Since the data for Greece are missing, the total number of Albanian citizens living in the entire European Union cannot be given. 

From the available data, Italy is the main country, with 433 thousand Albanians. From previous estimates, the number of those living in Greece is at the same levels as in Italy, or even higher. 

From the data of Eurostat, it is established that in the last 5-6 years, Germany and France have recorded the fastest growth of the Albanian population, while in Italy the trend has been decreasing. 

In 2021, the Albanian population registered in Germany was almost 77 thousand people, or almost three times higher than in 2015, before the new cycle of immigration started again. 

In France, the number of registered citizens has reached 33 thousand people, almost three times compared to 2015. About 110,000 registered Albanian citizens already live in these two countries together. 

Germany is the third country with the largest number of Albanian citizens, after Italy and Greece, while France is the fourth. Behind them is Belgium with about 7 thousand, Sweden with about 6 thousand, Switzerland with almost 3 thousand. Meanwhile, the data for Spain are also missing. 

For all the countries where the data is reported, the Albanian population living in them was 570 thousand at the end of 2021, but as it was pointed out, there is no data for Greece, which is an important country in terms of the number of Albanians living in it . 

Other Eurostat data on residence permits, since 2008, when Eurostat reports the data, until 2021, the EU countries have granted Albanians a total of 756 thousand Albanian citizens. 

By international institutions, the number of residence permits for citizens of a country is counted as immigration. 

The latest publication of Eurostat on the data of migrants in the European Union, has provided information on the integration of immigrants from all other countries in the EU states. 

In 2021, of people aged 20-64 living in the EU, 59.1% of non-EU nationals were employed, significantly less than for citizens of other EU Member States (74.4%). When it comes to unemployment, the rate was 6.3% for nationals of the relevant EU country, 8.7% for citizens of other EU member states and almost twice as high, 15.5%, for non-EU citizens. 

When it comes to education level, non-EU citizens aged 25-74 were more likely to have a low level of education (45.9%) than natives (22.1%) and EU citizens living in another country member (28.9%). Locals recorded the highest percentage among those with an average level of education (46.5%), while EU citizens residing in another member state represented the highest percentage among those with higher education (32.0%). 

In terms of social inclusion, 48.4% of non-EU citizens (aged 18 and over) were at risk of poverty or social exclusion compared to 19.5% of natives and 27.5% of EU citizens residing in another country member. Regarding housing, in 2021, only 24.2% of non-EU citizens owned a home in the EU, compared to 35.0% of EU citizens residing in another member state and 74.3% of natives. 

(Source: Monitor)