"In 2016, around 995 000,persons acquired citizenship of a member state of the European Union, up from 841,000 in 2015 and 889,000 in 2014," Eurostat said.
Of the total number of persons obtaining the citizenship of one of the EU Member States in 2016, 12% were former citizens of another EU Member State, while the majority were non-EU citizens or stateless.
The largest group acquiring citizenship of an EU Member State where they lived in 2016 was citizens of Morocco (101,300 persons, of whom 89% acquired citizenship of Spain, Italy or France), ahead of citizens of Albania (67,500, 97% acquired citizenship of Italy or Greece), India (41,700, almost 60% acquired British citizenship), Pakistan (32,900, more than half acquired British citizenship), Turkey (32,800, almost half acquired German citizenship), Romania (29,700, 44% acquired Italian citizenship), and Ukraine (24,000, 60% acquired citizenship of Germany, Romania, Portugal or Italy).
Moroccans, Albanians, Indians, Pakistanis, Turks, Romanians, and Ukrainians together represented about a third (33%) of the total number of persons who acquired citizenship of an EU Member State in 2016. Romanians (29,700 persons) and Poles (19,800) were the two largest groups of EU citizens acquiring citizenship of another EU Member State.
All but three Member States granted citizenship to more people in 2016 than they did in 2015. The largest relative increase was in Croatia (in 2016, it granted citizenship to 3 times more people than in 2015 – an increase from 1,196 persons to 3,973, or +232%), in Greece (the number more than doubled from 13,933 to 33,210, or +138%) and Malta (from 646 to 1,495, or +131%).
In 2016, the highest naturalisation rates were registered in Croatia (9.7 citizenships granted per 100 resident foreigners), Sweden (7.9) and Portugal (6.5).
The naturalisation rate is the ratio of the number of persons who acquired citizenship of a country during a year over the stock of foreign residents in the same country at the beginning of the year.