According to EU statistics bureau Eurostat, Albania is ranked second in the world for the number of people who received citizenship from one of the EU Member States in 2016:
67,500 Albanians received EU citizenship, of which 54.7% received Italian citizenship, 42.3% Greek, and 0.8% Belgian.
The number of Albanians receiving EU citizenship is only surpassed by that of Moroccans, 101,000 of which became EU citizens in 2016.
Their numbers are followed by those of Indian, Pakistani, Turkish, and Romanian citizens.
Among people from the Balkans, only 10,800 Serbians and 9,500 Kosovo Albanians have received EU citizenship, in sharp contrast to Albanians.
In total, 995,000 non-EU citizens have received EU citizenship in 2016. Compared to previous years, the number of applicants has increased visibly: in 2015, 841,000 people received EU citizenship, while in 2014, 889,000 did.
In another Eurostat report, Albanians were ranked seventh in a ranking of the amount of first time asylum applicants in EU countries. In 2017 alone, 22,075 Albanians had sought asylum in a EU country.
The majority, about 11,395, seeked asylum in France, making Albanians the largest group of asylum seekers in the country.
