The EU population increased by 0.2 percent in 2022, thanks to almost one million citizens taking EU citizenship.
Eurostat, the EU Office for Statistics, has revealed that Brazilians and Indians were among the top ten nationalities with the highest naturalization rates, while Moroccans represented the highest number of foreign nationals becoming EU citizens for the year, VisaGuide.World reports.
More than two-thirds (87 percent) of new EU citizens in 2022 were from non-EU countries, with 12 percent of them being EU residents.
Nearly Half of All Citizenships Were Granted to 10 Main Nationalities
Morocco nationals were the main EU citizenship beneficiaries in 2022, with 112,700 people becoming EU citizens. This represents 11.3 percent of all 998,000 people taking EU citizenship in 2022, while the whole ten nationalities made up for 42.5 of new EU citizens.
The increase in the number of Moroccans gaining EU citizenship corresponds to the increase in the number of new EU citizens. Yet, a small rise in the share of this group gaining citizenship is noticeable, as the same has gone up from 10.4 per cent in 2021 to 11.3 per cent.
The second and third nationality groups with the highest naturalisation rates were Syrians (90,400) and Albanians (50,300). The fourth spot is taken by Romanian nationals, who, despite having EU citizenship, opted for others – in most cases for Italian, German and Spanish citizenship.
Turkish nationals, who are the top visa applicants for 2022, represent the fifth largest nationality to obtain EU citizenship in 2022, followed by Ukraine (29,000).
Brazil and India are ranked as seventh and eighth countries of origin for most beneficiaries in 2022, with a total of 25,900 and 24,100, respectively. In 2022, Brazilians reached a new record of the highest naturalisation rates recorded in the last five years.
The list of top ten nationalities is concluded with Moldova (21,600) and Russia (20,200). According to SchengenVisaInfo, the number of Russian nationals becoming EU citizens surpassed 20,000, regardless of the stringent EU sanctions imposed on the country.
Italy Granted Most Citizenships in 2022 While Romania Had Highest Naturalisation Rates
Nearly one-quarter (22 percent) of new EU citizenships in 2022 was issued by Italy, representing almost 214,000 new EU citizens. The second country that issued the most citizenships was Spain (182,000) and Germany (167,000). This means that these three countries granted 57 per cent of all citizenships in the EU.
The largest increases in citizenships granted to non-national residents in 2022, when compared with 2021, were recorded in Italy (92,200), Spain (37,600), and Germany (36,600). At the other end of the scale, the largest decreases were noted in France (-15,900), the Netherlands (-9,300), and Portugal (-3,700).
Romania had the highest naturalisation rates, which describes the number of people in a country who became citizens there compared to the number of people who weren’t citizens at the start of the year.
In 2022, Romania stood out among EU nations with the highest naturalization rate, granting 26.8 citizenships per 100 non-national residents. Sweden and the Netherlands follow next with 10.6 and 4.4 naturalization rates.
Latvia and Estonia (both 0.4), as well as Austria and Bulgaria (both 0.7), had the lowest naturalization rates for 2022.