Poland has the lowest proportion of foreigners in the European Union, with foreign citizens making up just 0.3 percent of the population.

Just slightly more diversified are Romania (0.4 percent), and Croatia, Lithuania and Bulgaria (all 0.8 percent).

On the other end of the scale is Luxembourg (45.3 percent), meaning that almost half of the population do not have Luxembourgish citizenship, the Eurostat statistics agency said.

“On 1 January 2014, the member states of the European Union (EU) had 506.8 million residents, of which 472.8 million were nationals (citizens of the reporting country) and 34.1 million foreign citizens, this latter group consisting of 14.3 million citizens of another member state and 19.8 million non-EU citizens,” Eurostat said in a recent report.

The data comes at a time of increased social tension in Poland over whether to accept refugees from the Middle East as part of an EU resettlement programme. Thousands of Poles supportive of the conservative Law and Justice government have taken to the streets in recent weeks carrying placards reading “Poland for Poles” and similar slogans. (rg/pk)