The Romanians and the Poles were the two largest groups of EU citizens acquiring citizenship of other EU states, in 2014. A total of 24,300 Romanians and 16,100 Poles got citizenship of other EU member states in 2014, according to data from EU’s statistical office Eurostat.

Most Romanians (26.5% of the total of 24,300) got Italian citizenship, while 25.5% acquired Hungarian citizenship, and 10.7% got German citizenship.

Romanians represented 70.9% of all the people who got Hungarian citizenship in 2014, according to Eurostat. Most of the Romanians who got Hungarian citizenship were probably Magyar ethnics living in Transylvania.

On the other hand, Romania granted citizenship to little over 2,400 people in 2014. A third of them came from the Republic of Moldova, 3% were Serbians, and 2.5% were Iraqis.

Some 890,000 people acquired citizenship of an EU Member State in 2014, down from 981,000 the previous year. Almost 90% of them were non-EU citizens.

Moroccans represented the largest group acquiring citizenship of a EU Member State in 2014 – 92,700 individuals, followed by Albanians – 41,000, Turks – 37,500, Indians – 35,300, and Ecuadorians – 34,800.

Almost 1 in every 4 persons (23%) who acquired an EU citizenship in 2014 became citizens of Spain, namely 205,900 persons. Italy came second, with 129,900 people, and the United Kingdom was third, with 125,600 people. Germany and France also granted citizenship to more than 100,000 people each.

Former Romanian President gets Moldovan citizenship

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com