Official & exclusive : British citizenship is most popular choice for EU nationals

Latest EU figures show three times as many EU27 people become British as vice versa

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org

UK is by far the most popular country in the EU for those changing their citizenship

The EU Commission’s statistics agency has just released its new citizenship figures for 2018. Analysis by Brexit Facts4EU.Org shows that whilst the EU has tried to massage the reality in its official statement, the raw data cannot hide an embarrassing truth for EU officialdom.

In 2018 – the latest year for the figures just released –
three times more EU27 people became citizens of the UK
than British people becoming citizens of another EU country

In what must classify as one of the EU Commission’s more embarrassing “Oops, this is awkward” moments, it transpires that after the UK’s decision to leave the EU, far more EU27 citizens wanted to become citizens of the UK than of any EU country.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

Changing citizenships - the decisions of UK and EU27 people

  • Almost 50,000 people (47,584) from EU27 countries gained UK citizenship in 2018
  • Only 16,193 British people decided to become citizens of another EU country
  • Almost three times as many EU27 citizens became British citizens, as vice versa

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org - click to enlarge

The top 10 EU nationalities most successful in gaining British citizenship were Polish, Romanian, Italian, German, French, Bulgarian, Spanish, Hungarian, Portuguese, and Greek.

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org - click to enlarge

The data above all comes from the EU Commission’s official statistics agency on Monday (30 Mar 2020).

The EU27 and migrants from the rest of the world

For the EU27 in relation to the rest of the world, here are the basic facts on peoples gaining EU27 nationalities

© EU Commission

The EU27 granted a total of 672,270 citizenships in 2018. The top 5 non-EU nationalities getting EU27 citizenships were:

  1. Moroccans - 84% of these acquired citizenship of Spain, Italy or France
  2. Albanians – 97% acquired citizenship of Greece or Italy
  3. Turks – 59% acquired German citizenship
  4. Brazilians – 76% acquired citizenship of Italy or Portugal
  5. Algerians – 81% acquired French citizenship

IMPORTANT - number of EU27 residents in UK is MUCH higher

The information above about the EU and the UK (as well as to the rest of the world) relates to new (changed) citizenships. The number of EU citizens living in the UK but not yet taking up British citizenship is far higher, as we have reported many times over the years.

The last figures we obtained from the EU on this (in July last year) showed that 3.9 million EU27 citizens live in the UK, whereas only 849,000 British citizens live in the EU27 countries.

Observations

Yes, it’s true. Far more EU nationals wanted to become citizens of the soon-to-be-non-EU United Kingdom, than vice versa. The UK’s decision to leave the EU did not stem the tide of those EU nationals wanting to be British.

The EU has spent the last three years wittering on about “citizens’ rights” when it should have been negotiating a normal continuation of trading arrangements between the EU and the UK. Prominent EU politicians such as Mijneer Guy Verhofstadt MEP have repeatedly made very disparaging statements about the UK, as if it has a human rights record worse than China’s.

Well Guy, if the UK is so awful, how come more EU people want to become British than want to become citizens of your own country of Belgium, or of any of the other EU countries?

And how come you buy vintage British sports cars and come over to the UK to race them, if we’re such monsters?

Face it Guy, it’s great to be British. :-)

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[ Sources: EU Commission official statistics agency ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Thur 02 Apr 2020

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