Primary school children in Bologna appear in ad UNICEF campaign against discrimination
BRUSSELS - Italy granted citizenship to more people in 2014 than any other EU member state except for Spain, according to Eurostat data.
About 890,000 took on citizenship of EU member states in 2014, less than the 2013 figure of 981,000. Almost a quarter of those granted citizenship became Spanish citizens (205,900; 23%), followed by Italy (129,900; 15%), Great Britain (125,600; 14%), Germany (110,600; 12%) and France (105,600; 12%).
In proportion to its population per thousand inhabitants, Luxembourg granted the most (5.8), followed by Ireland (4.6), Sweden (4.5) and Spain (4.4).
Since 2009, over five million people have been granted citizenship in EU nations. Italy gave citizenship especially to those from Morocco (22.3%), Albania (16.3%) and Romania (5%). Some 89% of those that obtained citizenship of an EU member state in 2014 were nationals of third countries. The largest share were from Morocco (92,700, some 88% of whom now have either Spanish or Italian nationality), Albania (41,000, of whom 96% got either Greek or Italian nationality), Turkey (37,500, of whom 60% were granted German citizenship); India (35,300, of whom two thirds got British citizenship), Ecuador (34,800, of whom 94% got Spanish citizenship), Colombia (27,800, 90% of whom got Spanish citizenship) and Pakistan (25,100, about half of whom got UK citizenship).
Taken together, nationals from the countries listed above accounted for a third (33%) of the total number of people who acquired citizenship of an EU member state in 2014. Romanians (24,300) and Poles (16,100) were the two largest groups of EU citizens who took on citizenship in another member state.
