The mortality rate in the EU in 2015 was 1,036 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants – the states with the highest mortality rates were Bulgaria (1,660 deaths/100,000 people), followed by Romania (1,530 deaths) and Hungary (1,500 deaths), according to Eurostat.
At the opposite end of the ranking, the countries with the lowest mortality rate were France (895 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants), Spain (873 deaths), Italy (901 deaths) and Sweden (927 deaths).
At a general level, in 2015 there were 5,217 deaths in the European Union, around 272,000 more than in 2014. Around two million or 38 percent of the total number of deaths were for people aged between 70 and 85, and almost a quarter (24 percent) were people aged below 70.
The main causes of death in the European Union were: heart attacks, strokes and cancer. A little over 1.9 million people (37 percent) died due to circulatory system issues (mainly strokes and heart attacks) and 1.3 million people (26 percent) died due to cancer. These types of health issues were the main cause of death in all EU member states, with the exception of Denmark, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, where cancer was the main cause.