In 2021, 827,000 people acquired the citizenship of one of the European Union member states in which they lived at the time. That’s an increase of about 14 percent (or 98,300 people) compared to 2020.
Moroccans were the most populous nation among the new EU citizens, while the number of people from Serbia who received EU citizenship that year was about 8,000.
About 28 percent of Serbs received German citizenship, 15 percent Italian citizenship, and 14.7 percent Swedish citizenship, according to Eurostat data.
In 2021, Moroccans were the largest group of new EU citizens (86,200 people received citizenship). Of these, 71 percent acquired citizenship of Spain or France.
Syrians follow with 83,500 – 70 percent of whom acquired citizenship of Sweden or the Netherlands.
Albanians, Romanians, Turks, Brazilians, Algerians, Ukrainians, Russians and Pakistanis were also in the top ten nations who became the new citizens of the European Union in 2021.
Spain (144,000), France (130,400), Germany (130,000), Italy (121,500) and Sweden (89,400) granted the highest number of citizenships in 2021.
The largest increase in the number of issued citizenships compared to 2020 (+43,900) was recorded by France.
An increase was also recorded in Germany (+18,000), Spain (+17,700) and Sweden (+9,200).
On the other hand, ten countries in the European Union recorded a decrease in the number of granted citizenships compared to 2020.
Italy granted 10,300 fewer citizenships than in 2020, Portugal 7,600 and Greece 3,200.
The majority (85 percent of those who acquired the citizenship of an EU member state in 2021) was previously citizens of a country that is not a member of the European Union or were stateless.
(Danas, 03.03.2023)