LIMA, Shawwal 05, 1436, July 21, 2015, SPA -- Due to issues of high unemployment, citizens of European Union countries, especially Spain, are emigrating to Latin America, according to UPI. A May 2015 report by the European Union and the International Organization for migration noted that in 2010, for the first time in nearly 20 years, more Europeans left for Latin American than the reverse. The majority were from Spain, a country with a shared language and culture, and severe economic problems. In 2012, the most recent year of available statistics, 85 percent of immigrants to Latin America from EU countries were from Spain. The unemployment rate in Spain rose to 23.78 percent in the first quarter of 2015, the National Statistics Institute reported, noting it was 4.41 percent in 1976. Youth unemployment is estimated to be 50 percent. In 2012, expatriate Spaniards in Latin America and the Caribbean sent home $2.4 billion in remittances, 53 percent of the total amount received by EU countries from outside the EU. Peru, with a prospering economy, is a popular destination. "For a European, it takes some getting used to that the cars don't stop when you are crossing the street. It makes you despair. The extreme classism is also tough. In Spain, of course you have rich and poor, but not like here. Living in a different country teaches you so much. It opens your mind and you realize that things that you always thought were normal, or common sense, can be done a different way," Alba Garcia, formerly of Avila, Spain and now of Lima, Peru, told USA Today. --SPA 21:22 LOCAL TIME 18:22 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w