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| Passengers at Tirana Airport, Albania, 2018, march |
About 40.5 thousand Albanians received citizenship in one of the countries of the European Union during 2020, according to data published by Eurostat, most of them in Italy (70%).
They ranked third, after Moroccans and Syrians.
Since 2002, when Eurostat reports the data, Albanian citizens have received a total of 521 thousand passports in one of the European Union countries, most of them in Italy and Greece, who in years are becoming full citizens with rights in the countries where they live. Their highest number was given in 2016, with about 67.5 thousand, gradually decreasing in subsequent years (see graph at the end).
Citizenship granted by the EU
Eurostat reported that in total, in 2020, 729,000 people obtained citizenship of an EU member state where they lived, a 3% increase from 706,400 in 2019. This trend was mainly due to the registered increases in Spain (+27 300 Spanish nationalities given that in 2019), followed by the Netherlands (+21 800), Sweden (+16 000) and Portugal (+11 000).
In contrast, the largest reductions in absolute terms were observed in France (-23,300 French citizenships compared to 2019), followed by Germany (-20,800), Belgium (-6,700), and Romania (-4 000).
As in 2019, the majority (85%) of those who obtained citizenship of an EU member state in 2020 were previously citizens of a non-EU country or stateless. Former citizens of another EU member state accounted for 13% of the total number of citizenships acquired.
Moroccans, Syrians, and Albanians are the main recipients of citizenship