Around 825,400 persons became new citizens of EU Member Countries in 2017. According to Eurostat, a Directorate-General of the European Commission responsible for providing statistical information, a decrease of 17 % was marked compared to 2016.

Italy tops the table, with most citizenships granted in 2017, followed the United Kingdom and Germany. In relation to the population, Luxembourg granted the highest number of citizenship, followed by Sweden and Cyprus. On the other hand, Moroccans, Albanians and Indians are the main recipients of EU citizenship.

The report shows that 82% of those who obtained citizenship from one of the EU countries were previously citizens of a non-EU country.

“This means that 673,000 non-EU-28 citizens residing in the EU-28 acquired an EU citizenship in 2017, a 22% decrease with respect to 2016,” the report highlights.

The report also points out that women outnumbered men with a slight predominance of 52% women against 48% men. In addition, the median age of the new citizens of EU countries was 31 years old. Half of the total number of these persons were aged 31 or less.

“In 2017, about 40% of persons granted citizenship of an EU-28 country were younger than 25 years and around another 40% aged 25 to 44, while those aged 45 or over accounted for 19%. The proportion of citizenship acquisitions by children (0-14) was highest in Sweden (34%) and France (34%) and lowest in Lithuania (3 %). In Luxembourg, no children (0-10) were granted citizenship,” the report reads.

The top five citizenship-granting countries:

Italy – 146 600 or 18%

the United Kingdom – 123,100 or 15%

Germany – 115,400 or 14 %

France – 114,300 or 14%

Sweden – 68,900 or 8%

The top five citizenship recipients: