Romanians were the main group of EU citizens that received citizenship of another member state in 2012 - 25,200 persons, reports local Capital.ro. Romanians were followed by Poles – 12,800 persons and Italians – 7,900, according to data from Eurostat.

A total of 818,000 persons acquired citizenship of an EU member state in 2012, up by 4% compared with 2011 and by 6% compared with 2009. More than 85% of these were non-EU citizens coming from Morocco, Turkey, India, Ecuador and Iraq.

Three quarters of all persons who acquired a EU28 citizenship, became citizen of one of the following six Member States: the UK (23.7% of all citizenships granted in the EU28 in 2012), Germany (14%), France (11.7%), Spain (11.5%), Italy (8%) and Sweden (6.1%).

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