314 granted Maltese citizenship in 2014

Brits, Italians and Russian top list of nationalities granted citizenship; only 48% are non-EU citizens

13 June 2016, 3:10pm

1 min read

Around 52% of persons that acquired Maltese citizenship in 2014 were citizens of another European Union member state, wheras at EU level, 89% of those granted citizenship were non-EU citizens.

314 applications for Maltese citizenship were approved in 2014, with the largest bloc (29.6%) being UK citizens, followed by Italy (10.2%) and Russia (7%).

A Eurostat report said there were 890,000 persons granted citizenship of a member state of the EU in 2014, down from 981,000 in 2013. Since 2009, more than 5 million persons in total were granted a citizenship of an EU member state.

In the same year, the largest group acquiring citizenship of an EU member state was citizens of Morocco (92,700 persons, of which 88% acquired citizenship of Spain, Italy or France), ahead of citizens of Albania (41,000, of which 96% acquired citizenship of Greece or Italy), Turkey (37,500), India (35,000, almost two-thirds acquired British citizenship), Ecuador (34,800, 94% acquired Spanish citizenship), Colombia (27,800,) and Pakistan (25,100, around half acquired British citizenship).

Moroccans, Albanians, Turks, Indians, Ecuadorians, Colombians and Pakistanis represented together a third (33%) of the total number of persons who acquired EU citizenship in 2014. Romanians (24 300 persons) and Poles (16 100) were the two largest groups of EU citizens acquiring citizenship of another EU Member State.

Almost one in every four persons who acquired an EU citizenship in 2014 became citizens of Spain (205,900 persons, or 23% of all citizenships granted in the EU in 2014). It was followed by Italy (129,900 or 15%), the United Kingdom (125,600 or 14%), Germany (110,600 or 12%) and France (105,600 or 12%).

Of the five EU countries that granted the most citizenships in 2014, the naturalisation rate was above the EU average in Spain (4.4), around the EU average in Italy (2.6), France and the United Kingdom (both 2.5), and below the EU average in Germany (1.6).

The naturalisation rate in Malta during the same year stood at 1.3.