Over 48,000 Indians acquired EU citizenship in 2013

In 2013, round 985,000 people acquired citizenship of a European Union (EU) member-state, among them 48,300 Indians, three-quarters of whom acquired British citizenship.

The EU's statistical office, Eurostat, on Wednesday said that of the total number of people obtaining the citizenship of one of the 28 EU member-states in 2013, 89 percent were citizens of non-EU countries.

The largest groups acquiring citizenship of an EU member-state in 2013 were citizens of Morocco (86,500 people, of whom 84 percent acquired citizenship of Spain, Italy or France), followed by Turkey (46,500, 60 percent acquired German citizenship), Colombia (42,000, 93 percent acquired Spanish citizenship), Albania (41,700, 95 percent acquired citizenship of Greece or Italy) and Ecuador (40,400, 95 percent acquired Spanish citizenship).

Moroccans, Indians, Turks, Colombians, Albanians and Ecuadorians represented together almost a third (31 percent) of the total number of people who acquired EU citizenship in 2013, it noted.