Shorouk Express
EU countries granted citizenship to 1,050,100 foreign residents in 2023, the latest data by Eurostat, the EU statistical office, revealed.
This is an increase of over 6 percent compared to 2022 and does not consider the naturalisation of people living abroad, those who acquired citizenship by marriage or descent for instance.
Spain was the country that granted the largest number of citizenships (240,200), followed by Italy (213,600), Germany (199,800) and France (97,300). While it is somewhat expected that the biggest countries record the biggest number of new citizens, Sweden – the tenth EU state by population – was fifth (67,800) in the ranking of naturalisations.
Overall, these five countries accounted for 78 percent of new citizenships in the EU in 2023.
READ ALSO: A quarter of Spain’s immigrants have gained Spanish citizenship
Sweden was also second among the countries with the highest number of citizenships in relation to the total population (6.4 per thousand persons), preceded by Luxembourg (8.8), and followed by Spain (5), Belgium (4.7) and Italy (3.6).
However, Sweden also recorded the biggest decrease in the number of naturalisations compared to 2022 (down by 24,400), followed by France (minus 17,200) and Portugal (minus 3,800).
READ ALSO: KEY POINTS – Sweden’s plans for tougher citizenship rules
The main increases were in Spain (58,600 more residents were granted citizenship compared to 2022), followed by Germany (33,200) and Belgium (6,700).
“Citizenship is the legal bond between an individual and a state, acquired by birth, naturalisation, or other means according to national legislation,” says Eurostat. People obtaining citizenship in an EU member state also automatically acquire EU citizenship, which grants among other things free movement rights across the bloc and electoral rights in local and European elections.
The top three nationalities for naturalisations in EU countries in 2023 were Syrian, Moroccan and Albanian, like the previous year. They were followed by Romanians and Venezuelans.
Advertisement
The vast majority (87.6 per cent) of people granted an EU citizenship in 2023 were from non-EU countries, while the proportion of citizens naturalising in another EU member state remains low (10.7 percent). Only in Hungary and Luxembourg the majority of new citizenships (64.4 and 60.6 percent respectively) were granted to other EU nationals.
Another indicator used by Eurostat for citizenship statistics is the proportion of citizenships granted over the non-national population.
This was highest in Sweden (7.9), followed by Romania (5.9) and Italy (4.1). The lowest naturalisation rate was in Latvia (0.4) and Lithuania (0.1). The EU average was 2.6.
Women outnumbered men for acquisition of citizenship in all but 7 EU countries (Germany, Lithuania, Romania, Sweden, Hungary, Ireland and Malta), with the highest proportion in Croatia (62.2 per cent).
Advertisement
Germany, on the other hand, was the country with the highest share of citizenship acquisitions by men (54.7 percent). But for the EU as a whole the gender distribution was almost equal, with 50.8 percent of new citizenships granted to women and 49.2 percent to men.
Children below the age of 15 years represented almost a quarter (24.5 percent) of persons granted citizenship of an EU country, with the highest proportion in France (35 percent), Greece (30.8 percent) and Denmark (29.7 percent). The lowest proportion of new citizens by age group was for people above 45 years.
READ ALSO: Could dual nationals in Germany have to give up a citizenship if the law is reversed?
