More than 706,000 people acquired EU citizenship in 2019, according to Eurostat data published on Monday. Moroccans, Albanians and Brits were the main recipients, followed by Syrians, Turks, Romanians, Brazilians, Ukrainians, Algerians and Russians.

Romanians, Poles and Italians made up the largest groups of EU citizens gaining a passport from another EU country.

Germany granted most new citizenships (132,000 or 19% of the EU total), followed by Italy (127,000 or 18%), France (109,800 or 16%), Spain (99,000 or 14%) and Sweden (64,200 or 9%).

The latter had the highest naturalisation rate--7 citizenships issued per 100 foreign residents--followed by Romania (4.7) and Portugal (4.4), Finland (3.8) and the Netherlands (3.2) in the top five.

The EU average was 2%, with Luxembourg coming in at 1.94%.

Lithuania (0.2), Denmark (0.3), Estonia (0.4), and the Czech Republic (0.5) had the lowest naturalisation rates in the EU.