Concern: Population in Balkans shrinks, Kosovo ranks

Poverty and then freedom to move have driven a portion of the Balkan population to emigrate, but in Albania this trend is much higher, after the years of dealt with dealt with in the past 90s, although our country has not had war conflicts, like most neighbouring states.

Moreover, the desire to escape has been markedly revived in recent years, as the Georgians show, with 4.6 applications for 1,000 inhabitants, followed by Syrians with 4.4 applications, Albania in 2018.

In total from 2001, around 214 thousand people have sought asylum in EU countries, peaking in 2015, with about 69 thousand people, according to Eurostat's previous data.

This obsession to escape is reflected in population numbers.

Eurostat's latest data on potential candidate countries to the European Union show that Albania has marked the population's greater contraction from net migration compared to all other Balkan countries, for the two years that have been given reference, both in 2007 and 2017, as more people leave, than they return.

Albania, along with Kosovo and Montenegro, is one of the three countries that report the negative rate of net migration for 2017, but Eurostat stresses that this tendency is much higher in Albania, with a net migration of way5.2 per 10,000 people, followed by Kosovo with about -3 per 1000 inhabitants and Montenegro with less than -2 (charified).

Turkey's net migration rate was positive (1.6 per 1,000 people), while for Macedonia, Bosnia and Serbia, the migration flows have almost not changed

On the other side, Albania continues to have a positive natural surplus, though minimal, with births exceeding deaths and the natural population change rate was about 3 per 1,000 people.

The natural growth of the population is particularly high in Kosovo and Turkey, where the natural population change rate was 11.4 per 000 in Kosovo and 10.8 for 10,000 people in Turkey. In contrast, deaths in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia exceed births, and in turn the natural addition of the population dropped by 2.0 per 000 in Bosnia and Herzegovina and by 5.5 per thousand in Serbia.

Eurostat data shows that Albania has a gross birth rate of 10.7 per 1,000 people, ranking fourth after Kosovo (16.8), Turkey (16.1), Montenegro (11.9), while ultimately ranks Bosnia (8.3).

For the deaths, Serbia leads 14.8-year-olds for 1,000 residents, while Albania ranks fourth, after Montenegro (10.5), Bosnia (10.4), North Macedonia (9.8). The lowest death rate is in Kosovo (5.4).

Serbia has the oldest population, with 20% of it over 65 years of age, but that indicator remains high and for Albania, Northern Macedonia and Montenegro by around 15.16%. The lowest, the population weight of over 65 is in Kosovo and Turkey, at about 10%.

Turkey and Kosovo have the youngest population, with 23-25% occupying young people under 15 years of age, while in Albania, the weight of those under 15 was about 185 in 2017.