According to the latest figures of Eurostat, which were released on Wednesday, Bulgaria granted citizenship to 808 foreign nationals in 2013.

Bulgaria granted the third lowest number of citizenships in the EU, the only two member states granting less being Lithuania and Slovakia.

A total of 94 % of the people who were granted Bulgarian citizenship in 2013 were non-EU nationals, while only 2 % were EU citizens.

In 2013, the three largest groups, who acquired Bulgarian citizenship were Ukrainians, Moldovans and Macedonians.

At the EU level, the 28 member states granted citizenship to 984 800 persons in 2013, which represented an increase of 20 % or 163 000 people compared to 2012.

Nearly nine out of ten or 89 % of people, who were granted EU citizenship, were non-EU nationals.

The largest groups acquiring citizenship of an EU member state in 2013 were citizens of Morocco, followed by nationals of India, Turkey, Colombia, Albania and Ecuador.

These six nationalities represented almost a third of all people acquiring EU citizenship in 2013.

Romanians and Poles were the largest groups of EU citizens acquiring citizenship of another member state.

Spain was the member state granting citizenship to the largest number of people – 225 793.

The highest naturalisation rates were registered in Sweden, Hungary and Portugal, while the lowest were recorded in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Denmark.

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