Almost 10,000 first residence permits – 9,984 to be precise – were granted to non-EU citizens last year, the bulk going to Libyan, Serbian and Russian nationals.

Data published by the EU statistics agency, Eurostat, yesterday shows that 2,147 permits were given to Libyans (21.5 per cent), followed by 920 for Serbians  and 902 for Russians.

The permits were granted mostly for employment reasons (2,782 or 27.9 per cent), “other reasons” (2,713 or 27.2 per cent), educational purposes (2,346 or 23.5 per cent) and family reasons (2,143 or 21.5 per cent).

Malta, with a population of just over 420,000, issued the highest rate of first permits in proportion to its size. The figures show that 23 permits per 1,000 people were issued in Malta.

Malta issued the highest rate of first permits in proportion to its size

After Malta, Cyprus (18.4), Poland (14.3) Sweden (11.3) and the United Kingdom (9.7) issued the highest rate of such permits compared with their population.

Across the 28 member states, 2.6 million first residence permits were issued in the EU to non-EU citizens, a record since data collection began in 2008.

“This increase was mainly due to the higher number of first permits issued for employment reasons,” Eurostat said.

“Accounting for 28.9 per cent of all first residence permits issued in the EU in 2015, family remained the main reason of deliverance, followed by employment (27.2 per cent), other reasons (23.8 per cent) and education (20.2 per cent).”

In 2015, the EU had issued 5.1 first residence permits per 1,000 population.

Poland was by far the first destination for employment-related permits (53 per cent), while the UK (229,100 permits, or 44 per cent) was the primary destination in the EU for education-related reasons.