BRUSSELS - Almost one million people obtained citizenship in a European Union country in 2016 and Italy was the State that granted most applications, Eurostat said on Monday. The EU statistics office said that 201,591 people gained Italian citizenship in 2016, putting Italy ahead of Spain with 150,944 and the United Kingdom with 149,372.
It said 18.3% of the new Italians were originally from Albania, with 17.5% coming from Morocco and 6.4% from Romania.
In 2016, around 995,000 persons acquired citizenship of a Member State of the European Union (EU), up from 841,000 in 2015 and 889,000 in 2014, Eurostat said. Of the total number of persons obtaining the citizenship of one of the EU Member States in 2016, 12% were former citizens of another EU Member State, while the majority were non-EU citizens or stateless, it added.
