(Brussels) In 2017, 3.1 million new residence permits for citizens of third countries were issued in the European Union; it was made known by Eurostat through a study issued today. “Such figure increased by almost 4% (112,000) with respect to 2016”. Almost one third (32%) of all the new residence permits of 2017 were issued for reasons of work, followed by family reasons (26%), education (17%), while other reasons such as international protection equalled 24%. “The increase in the total number of new residence permits in 2017 with respect to 2016 was mainly due to increase in the number of new permits issued either for work reasons or for reasons linked with education”, says Eurostat. In 2017, slightly more than one out of five new EU residence permits were issued in Poland (683,000 residence permits released, that is, 22% of the total). Poland was followed by Germany (535,000 – 17%), United Kingdom (517,000 – 16%), France (250,000 – 8%), Spain (231,000 – 7%), Italy (187,000 – 6%), and Sweden (130,000 – 4%). “In relation to the population of each member State, the highest rates of new residence permits released in 2017 occurred in Malta (23 new permits per one thousand inhabitants), Cyprus (22), Poland (18), Sweden (13), and Luxemburg (12). As for the EU on the whole, in 2017, 6 new residence permits per one thousand inhabitants were issued.