European Union statistics

Statistics in the European Union are collected by Eurostat (European statistics body).

Area and population

EU and UK population cartogram

As of 1 January 2006, the population of the EU was about 493 million people, although in 2020 the EU lost over 10% of its population as a result of the UK leaving the bloc. Many countries are expected to experience a decline in population over the coming decades, though this could be offset with new countries planning to join the EU within the next 20 years. The most populous member state is Germany, with an estimated 80.4 million people. France and Ireland have the highest birth-rates. The most densely populated country is the island of Malta, which is also the smallest, while the largest in area is France. The least densely populated country is Finland.

Population figures in the table below are from 2006 or 2007 estimates. The highest and lowest figures in each column have been marked in bold.

Member State	Population in millions	Population  % of EU	Area km2	Area % of EU	Pop. density People/km2
European Union	494.8	100%	4,422,773	100%	112
Austria	8.3	1.7%	83,858	1.9%	99
Belgium	10.5	2.1%	30,510	0.7%	344
Bulgaria	7.7	1.6%	110,912	2.5%	70
Croatia	4.3	0.9%	56,594	1.3%	75.8
Cyprus	0.8	0.2%	9,250	0.2%	84
Czech Republic	10.3	2.1%	78,866	1.8%	131
Denmark	5.4	1.1%	43,094	1.0%	126
Estonia	1.3	0.3%	45,226	1.0%	29
Finland	5.3	1.1%	337,030	7.6%	16
France	65.03	13.%	643,548	14.6%	111
Germany	80.4	16.6%	357,021	8.1%	225
Greece	11.1	2.2%	131,940	3.0%	84
Hungary	10.1	2.0%	93,030	2.1%	108
Ireland	4.6	0.9%	70,280	1.6%	60
Italy	58.8	11.9%	301,320	6.8%	195
Latvia	2.3	0.5%	64,589	1.5%	35
Lithuania	3.4	0.7%	65,200	1.5%	45
Luxembourg	0.5	0.1%	2,586	0.1%	181
Malta	0.4	0.1%	316	0.0007%	1,261
Netherlands	17	3.3%	41,526	0.9%	394
Poland	38.1	7.7%	312,685	7.1%	122
Portugal	10.6	2.1%	92,931	2.1%	114
Romania	21.6	4.4%	238,391	5.4%	91
Spain	44.7	9.0%	504,782	11.4%	87
Slovakia	5.4	1.1%	48,845	1.1%	111
Slovenia	2.0	0.4%	20,253	0.5%	99
Sweden	10	1.8%	449,964	10.2%	20

Economy

For statistics relating to economy, please see Economy of the European Union.

EU budget

The primary resource for funding the European Union is the contributions sought from member states. Each member state contributes to the EU budget, and receives funding back from the EU, depending on the relative wealth of the states, i.e. their ability to pay.

The table below shows the contributions as a percentage of the total budget. This takes into account the special considerations given to the United Kingdom to reduce its contribution through a rebate. Expenditure in Luxembourg, Belgium and France include items for the EU administrative centres in each of those countries.

Member State	Total contribution in Euro	Total contribution as % of total EU budget	Total expenditure year 2006 in Euro	Total expenditure as % of total EU budget	Net contribution in Euro	Net contribution in Euro per capita	Total contribution in Euro per capita
European Union	105,259,468,772	100.00%	106,575,500,000	100.00%	-1,316,031,228	-3	213
Germany	22,218,438,941	21.11%	12,242,400,000	11.49%	9,976,038,941	124	276
France	17,303,107,859	16.44%	13,496,200,000	12.66%	3,806,907,859	59	266
Italy	14,359,479,157	13.64%	10,922,300,000	10.25%	3,437,179,157	58	244
United Kingdom	13,739,900,046	13.05%	8,294,200,000	7.78%	5,445,700,046	90	226
Spain	8,957,286,488	8.51%	12,883,000,000	12.09%	-3,925,713,512	-88	200
Netherlands	5,552,933,781	5.28%	2,190,400,000	2.06%	3,362,533,781	198	327
Belgium	4,035,286,807	3.83%	5,625,100,000	5.28%	-1,589,813,193	-151	384
Sweden	2,832,862,800	2.69%	1,573,400,000	1.48%	1,259,462,800	126	283
Austria	2,308,432,030	2.19%	1,830,100,000	1.72%	478,332,030	58	278
Denmark	2,130,860,212	2.02%	1,501,900,000	1.41%	628,960,212	116	395
Poland	2,099,087,114	1.99%	5,305,600,000	4.98%	-3,206,512,886	-84	55
Greece	1,882,611,879	1.79%	6,833,700,000	6.41%	-4,951,088,121	-446	170
Finland	1,544,832,284	1.47%	1,280,400,000	1.20%	264,432,284	50	291
Portugal	1,443,049,602	1.37%	3,634,800,000	3.41%	-2,191,750,398	-207	136
Ireland	1,341,281,313	1.27%	2,461,800,000	2.31%	-1,120,518,687	-244	292
Hungary	1,003,119,411	0.95%	1,842,200,000	1.73%	-839,080,589	-83	99
Czech Republic	932,392,859	0.89%	1,330,000,000	1.25%	-397,607,141	-39	91
Slovakia	393,148,777	0.37%	696,200,000	0.65%	-303,051,223	-56	73
Slovenia	299,993,572	0.29%	406,000,000	0.38%	-106,006,428	-53	150
Luxembourg	241,439,011	0.23%	1,194,800,000	1.12%	-953,360,989	-1,907	483
Lithuania	221,997,405	0.21%	799,800,000	0.75%	-577,802,595	-170	65
Cyprus	144,556,416	0.14%	239,600,000	0.22%	-95,043,584	-119	181
Latvia	115,205,431	0.11%	402,600,000	0.24%	-287,394,569	-125	50
Estonia	100,756,308	0.10%	300,000,000	0.28%	-199,243,692	-142	72
Malta	57,409,269	0.05%	157,000,000	0.14%	-99,590,731	-249	144
Bulgaria			360,600,000	0.34%	-360,600,000	-47
Romania			693,100,000	0.65%	-693,100,000	-32

Freedom and governance-related rankings for EU members and EU candidate countries

There are many indices available on issues such as corruption, development, and freedom.

Freedom of the press

EU Rank Member State Global Rank 1 Finland 2 2 Denmark 3 3 Sweden 5 4 Netherlands 6 5 Portugal 10 6 Germany 11 7 Belgium 12 8 Ireland 13 9 Estonia 14 10 Luxembourg 17 11 Austria 18 12 Latvia 22 13 Cyprus 27 14 Lithuania 28 15 Spain 29 16 Slovenia 32

EU Rank Member State Global Rank 17 Slovakia 33 18 France 34 19 Czech Republic 40 20 Italy 41 21 Romania 48 22 Croatia 59 23 Poland 62 24 Greece 65 25 Malta 81 26 Albania 89 27 Hungary 89 28 North Macedonia 92 29 Serbia 93 30 Montenegro 105 31 Bulgaria 111

Reporters sans frontières (Reporters Without Borders) conducts an annual survey on the freedom of the press and produces scores (not shown here) for each country, resulting in the Press Freedom Index. In 2019 and 2020, Finland was proclaimed as having the freest press in the European Union, and the second in the world behind Norway. Bulgaria was ranked as having the least free press in the European Union in 2019 and 2020.

Economic freedom

EU Rank Member State Global Rank 1 Ireland 6 2 Denmark 8 3 Estonia 10 4 Netherlands 14 5 Lithuania 16 6 Luxembourg 19 7 Finland 20 8 Sweden 22 9 Czech Republic 23 10 Germany 27 11 Austria 29 12 Latvia 32 13 Bulgaria 36 14 Cyprus 37

EU Rank Member State Global Rank 15 Romania 38 16 Malta 42 17 Poland 46 18 Belgium 48 19 Slovenia 52 20 Portugal 56 21 Spain 58 22 Slovakia 60 23 Hungary 62 24 France 64 25 Italy 74 26 Croatia 84 27 Greece 100

An index of Economic Freedom is produced by the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation. It uses 50 different variables to compile the survey, in areas such as trade policy and government intervention.

A similar index produced by the World Economic Forum is its Global Competitiveness Index.

Source: 2020 Index of Economic Freedom.

Colour Codes
Free
Mostly Free
Moderately Free
Moderately Unfree

Perception of corruption

EU Rank Member State Global Rank 1 Denmark 1 2 Finland 3 3 Sweden 4 4 Netherlands 8 5 Luxembourg 9 6 Germany 9 7 Austria 12 8 Belgium 17 9 Estonia =18 10 Ireland =18 11 France 23 12 Portugal =30 13 Spain =30 14 Slovenia =35

EU Rank Member State Global Rank 15 Lithuania =35 16 Cyprus =41 17 Poland =41 18 Czech Republic =44 19 Latvia =44 20 Malta 50 21 Italy 51 22 Slovakia 59 23 Greece 60 24 Croatia 63 25 Romania =70 26 Hungary =70 27 Bulgaria 74

Transparency International is an international NGO publishing an annual Global Corruption Report indicating the perception of corruption around the world. The rankings of the table refer to the Corruption Perceptions Index 2019 [1]. A high ranking means low corruption.

Human development

EU Rank Member State Global Rank 1 Ireland 3 2 Germany 4 3 Sweden 8 4 Netherlands 10 5 Denmark 11 6 Finland 12 7 Belgium 17 8 Austria 20 9 Luxembourg 21 10 Slovenia 24 11 Spain 25 12 France 26 13 Czech Republic 26 14 Malta 28

EU Rank Member State Global Rank 15 Italy 29 16 Estonia 30 17 Cyprus 31 18 Greece 32 19 Poland 32 20 Lithuania 34 21 Slovakia 36 22 Latvia 39 23 Portugal 40 24 Hungary 43 25 Croatia 46 26 Romania 52 27 Bulgaria 52

The Human Development Index is a measure produced by the United Nations which covers three aspects of human development:

• poverty (GDP per capita)
• education (mean years of schooling and expected years of schooling)
• health (life expectancy)

The rankings of the table refer to the UNDP Human Development Report 2019 (2018 data). The UN lists all EU member states as countries with very high human development.

Income equality

EU Rank Member State Global Rank 1 Denmark 2 2 Sweden 4 3 Czech Republic 5 4 Slovakia 6 5 Hungary 10 = Finland 10 7 Germany 14 8 Slovenia 15 9 Austria 18 10 Bulgaria 19 11 Netherlands 25 12 Romania 26

EU Rank Member State Global Rank 13 France 32 14 Belgium 33 15 Greece 40 = Ireland 40 17 Poland 44 18 Spain 47 19 Estonia 50 20 Lithuania 51 21 Italy 51 22 Latvia 57 23 Portugal 59

Income inequality, measured by the gini coefficient is how evenly incomes are distributed through the population. Denmark has the least income inequality with a gini coefficient score of 24.4, whilst Portugal has the most income inequality with a score of 38.5. Malta, Luxembourg, and Cyprus have no statistics available, and so are not included in this table. These statistics have been compiled by the United Nations (see [2])

Ease of doing business

EU Rank Member State Global Rank 1 Denmark 4 2 Sweden 10 3 Lithuania 11 4 Estonia 18 5 Latvia 19 6 Finland 20 7 Germany 22 8 Ireland 24 9 Austria 27 10 Spain 30 11 France 32 12 Slovenia 37 13 Portugal 39 14 Poland 40

EU Rank Member State Global Rank 15 Czech Republic 41 16 Netherlands 42 17 Slovakia 45 18 Belgium 46 19 Croatia 51 20 Hungary 52 21 Cyprus 54 22 Romania 55 23 Italy 58 24 Bulgaria 61 25 Luxembourg 72 26 Greece 79 27 Malta 88

The Ease of Doing Business Index is created by the World Bank and based on the study of laws and regulations, with the input and verification by more than 3,500 government officials, lawyers, business consultants, accountants and other professionals who routinely advise on or administer legal and regulatory requirements.

The data in the table are from the 2020 report.

See also

• Enlargement of the European Union
• Largest cities of the European Union by population within city limits
• Hispanics and Latins in Europe
• List of European Union member states by population
• Largest urban areas of the European Union and Larger Urban Zones
• Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe statistics

External links

• Eurostat – Statistics Explained
• Health-EU Portal Health Statistics
• EU Budget Data