Only 4.9 per cent of the population in Malta was made up of foreigners in 2011 and only 2.4 per cent of these came from outside the European Union, according to Eurostat.

The EU statistical office, says in a report the figures are quite low for Malta. Countries such as Estonia, Latvia and Liechtenstein had more than 195,000 foreign citizens, representing 15 per cent or more of their population.

The report considers foreign citizens as “people who are not citizens of the country in which they reside”. The figures also include “stateless” people, which, according to the UNHCR, are individuals who would not have a nationality and these can also include refugees.

The report confirmed that mobility within the EU did not really affect Malta. Only 10,400 people – 2.5 per cent of the population – are citizens of another EU 27 member state.

Once again, compared to other member states, the figures for Malta are not high. The highest proportion of foreign citizens in the population was observed in Luxembourg – 43 per cent of the total population followed by Cyprus – 20 per cent.

Overall, EU citizens living in another member state accounted for 2.5 per cent of the entire EU population in 2011.

Non-EU citizens made up 4.1 per cent of the EU population.