With the exception of Slovenia, all of the emerging European countries which are members of the European Union have far higher death rates than the EU average of 1,002 deaths per 100,000 people.
According to Eurostat, the EU’s statistics department, Bulgaria has the highest death rate in the bloc, with 1,602 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in 2016. Bulgaria was followed by Latvia and Romania (both 1,476 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants), Lithuania (1,455) and Hungary (1,425).
At the opposite end of the scale, the lowest death rate across the EU member states was recorded in Spain (829 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants), ahead of France (838), Italy (843), Malta (882), Luxembourg (905) and Sweden (913).
A total of 5.1 million persons died in the European Union (EU) in 2016, some 80,000 less than in the previous year.
