The European Statistical Office (Eurostat) have issued a publication on 24th of July 2019 called Statistics on Mobility in Europe, in which it showed the latest figures on the movement of people around the world in and out of Europe.
One of the statistics sectors were the grants of citizenships by the European Union member states in the year of 2017, which have shown that there was 825,447 granted citizenships throughout all of the European Union countries, with Italy being the top ranked country with 146,605 citizenships granted, followed by the United Kingdom (123,106), Germany (115,421), France (114,274), Sweden (68,898), and then Spain with 66,498 granted citizenships.
The Arab countries have ranked highly in these statistics as a result of the mass population movements to Europe which incurred in the past 10 years due to political instability throughout the region.
The top 5 Arab countries nationalities who migrated and obtained citizenship in Europe are as follows:
- Morocco
Morocco is the highest ranked country in the Arab countries and the world when compared by European citizenships acquired in 2017 by its nationals, as they were granted 68,326 citizenships. The majority of these citizenships were granted from Italy (22,645), Spain (17,082), and France (16,687).
- Algeria
Algeria has ranked 2nd in the Arab countries with a total of 20,380 citizenships granted to its nationals, with 16,283 (80%) citizenships granted from France, it is important to know that Algeria and France share a historically rich relationship, and Algeria is considered the 2nd Francophone country in the world in terms of speakers, also many of Algerians have moved and settled in France throughout the years, which explain the statistics results.
- Somalia
Somalia has ranked 3rd in the Arab countries and 12th in the world with a total of 16,878 citizenships acquired, mainly from Sweden (8,140), Netherlands (2,999) and the United Kingdom (2,081).
- Syria
The Syrian civil war has been the major force for migration and resettlement of Syrian nationals across the world, Syrians in Europe have been granted a total of 13,898 citizenships, Mainly from Sweden (8,635) and Germany (2,479), two of the top European countries in Europe who received waves of asylum seekers and refugees from Syria.
- Iraq
The number of Iraqis migrating to Europe has drastically increased over the years due to the many conflicts and instability in the country, Iraqis have been granted a total of 12,976 citizenships from European countries mainly from Germany (3,480) and Sweden (3,272).