166.936 registered immigrants living in the Balearics

PALMA
THE spotlight continues to focus on immigration in Spain after the issue has recently become the latest election debate and yesterday it was revealed that over the past year, nearly one million immigrants have legally come to work and live in Spain.

According to Spain's Immigration Observatory, there are now nearly four million immigrants officially registered in Spain and 198'638 are British.
The community which grew the most last year was Romanian.
After the country joined the European Union last January, the number of Romanians registered in Spain rose by 190 percent to 603'889 by the end of last year.

In fact, after the Moroccans, the Romanians now account for the country's second largest immigrant community.
The fifth largest foreign community, based on official figures, is British.
Here in the Balearics, however, the number of registered European Union residents is slightly superior to the number of immigrants from non EU countries.

The Observatory report, published on December 31 last year, states that there are 166'936 registered immigrants living in the islands. 87'831 are EU citizens and the remaining 79'105 from elsewhere.

However, if, as published in the Bulletin yesterday, the leader of the opposition Partido Popular Rosa Estaras is correct, there are a further 70'000 immigrants living in the Balearics illegally.

The Balearic population now stands at over a million, but add those two figures together and there are an estimated 236'936 foreigners living here - nearly a quarter of the total Balearic population.