Brussels - In 2014, 889,100 people obtained citizenship of an EU-28 Member State, including 92.700 Moroccans, the EU's statistical office Eurostat said on Monday.
Viewed in terms of original citizenship, as in previous years, the largest groups were Moroccans (92,700, or 10.4 percent), followed by Albanians (41,000, or 4.6 percent), Turks (37,500, or 4.2 percent), Indians (35,300, or 4.0 percent), Ecuadorians (34,800, or 3.9 percent), Colombians (27,800, or 3.1 percent) and Pakistanis (25,100, or 2.8 percent), Eurostat added.
The majority of Moroccans acquired citizenship of Spain (38 percent), Italy (31 percent) or France (20 percent), the source noted.
In 2014, 889,100 people obtained citizenship of an EU-28 Member State, a decrease of 9 % compared with 2013, Eurostat said.
This was mainly caused by the decreases in absolute terms in the United Kingdom (81,900 fewer persons were granted British citizenship than in 2013), followed by Spain (19,900), Belgium (16,000), Greece (8,600) and Sweden (6,700).
By contrast, the largest increases in absolute terms were observed in Italy (29,200 more persons were granted Italian citizenship compared with 2013), followed by France (8,300) and Netherlands (6,800 more).
The top five citizenship-granting countries accounted for 76 percent of new citizenships granted in the EU in 2014: Spain (205,900 or 23 percent), followed by Italy (129,900 or 15 percent), the United Kingdom (125,600 or 14 percent), Germany (110,600 or 12 percent) and France (105,600 or 12 percent), according to the same source.
With MAP
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