Slovak passport. (source: TASR)
Slovakia granted altogether 309 people citizenship in 2015, of which 66 percent went to citizens of non-EU countries.
The most successful applicants were Ukrainians (23.6 percent of all citizenships granted), followed by Czechs (22.7 percent) and Americans (10 percent).
On the other hand, Slovaks were the third most successful applicants for citizenship in Hungary, the SITA newswire reported, referring to the data of the Eurostat statistics office.
Back in 2015, about 840,000 people were granted citizenship of some EU member states, which is a drop compared with the previous years. Of the total number of people granted citizenship, 87 percent were received by non-EU applicants.
The biggest group of citizens who were granted EU citizenship in 2015 were Moroccans (mostly in Italy, Spain and France), followed by Albanians (in Italy and Greece), Turks (particularly in Germany), Indians (mostly in the United Kingdom), Romanians (half of them in Italy), Pakistanis (half of them in the UK), and Algerians (mostly in France).
Romanians (28,400 people) and Poles (17,800 people) comprise the two biggest groups of EU citizens who were granted citizenship in other EU member state, SITA reported.
The Eurostat data also suggests that every fifth person who received a EU citizenship in 2015 became a citizen of Italy (178,000 people or 21 percent of all citizenships granted). The next on the list is the UK (118,000 people or 14 percent), followed by Spain (114,400 people or 14 percent), France (113,600 people or 14 percent), and Germany (110,100 people or 13 percent).
Regarding their number of new citizens to the number of local inhabitants, the most citizenships granted per 1,000 citizens was in Luxembourg and Sweden, followed by Cyprus, Italy, and Ireland, SITA reported.
