Spain Tops EU Countries In Granting Citizenships In 2021
Spain News
Published: 15 March 2023 15:43 CET
According to data provided by the European Office for Statistics, Eurostat, in 2021 Spain granted a total of 144,800 new citizenships, which accounted for 17 percent of all nationalisations in the European Union.
Spain was the leading EU country in terms of citizenship granted, with a majority of the recipients being from Morocco.
France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden followed closely behind Spain with 130,400, 130,000, 121,500, and 89,400 nationalisations, respectively.
Moroccans received the highest number of EU citizenships overall, with 86,100 from all over the EU, of which 48.8 percent were granted Spanish nationality.
Other nationalities that received Spanish citizenship included Romanians (10.5 percent), Brazilians (15.7 percent), Russians (7.8 percent), Ecuadorians (68.2 percent), and Colombians (77.3 percent).
Syrians came second to Moroccans in terms of receiving EU nationality, with 83,500 people, 70 percent of whom acquired Swedish or Dutch citizenship. Albanians came third with 32,300 people, 70 percent of whom became Italian nationals. Romanians came fourth with 28,600 people, followed by Ukrainians with 18,200 new nationalisations, mainly in Poland and Italy.
A statement from Eurostat reads “As of 2020, the majority (85 per cent) of those who obtained citizenship of a European Union Member State in 2021 were previously citizens of a non-EU country or stateless. Citizens of another European Union country accounted for 13 per cent of the total number of citizenships acquired,”
The same revealed that on January 1, 2022, citizens of the European Union represented 94.6 percent of the EU population.
Spain's Social Security system gained 190,913 foreign affiliates in 2022, an 8.4 percent increase compared to 2021, with 2,460,719 registered affiliates, which is a new record.
SchengenVisaInfo.com reports that ten countries within the European Union witnessed a decrease in the number of citizenships granted. Among them, Italy saw the most significant drop with 10,300 fewer Italian citizenships granted than in 2020. Portugal had a decrease of 7,600, followed by Greece with 3,200, Finland with 1,200, and Cyprus with 800.
Source
https://www.thelocal.es/20230314/spain-gave-citizenship-to-more-people-than-any-eu-country-in-2021
https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/over-827000-people-acquired-citizenship-in-eu-countries-in-2021/
