Moroccans top the list of foreigners naturalized in EU countries in 2017

Moroccan nationals top the list of foreigners naturalized by European Union countries in 2017. 67, 900 Moroccan nationals were naturalized in 2017, according to data provided Wednesday by Eurostat.

In 2017, 33,4% of the naturalized Moroccans are settled down in Italy, 25.7% in Spain, 24.6% in France and 13.6% of them live in Belgium, the same source indicated.

While Moroccans are the ones to benefit the most from naturalization in the European Union, Albanians are ranked second, followed by Indians, and Turks.

In 2017, 825,000 people were naturalized by one of the EU countries, compared to 2016 when only 995,000 benefited from the same status.

17% of these people were former citizens of another EU Member State, the majority of them are third-country nationals or stateless persons.

According to Eurostat, in 2017, Romanians (25,000 people), Poles (22,000) and the British (15,000) were the three largest groups of EU citizens who had obtained the nationality of another EU member state.