As reported by 'Russkaya Germaniya', a total of 108420 new German citizens were registered last year. That is about 3900 people (or 3.5%) fewer than in 2013, and 2% below the average for the last ten years. But looking at individual countries or regions of origin of the new Germans, the picture is not so clear.
For example, the number of holders of German passports who once arrived in Germany from other EU countries increased by as much as 12.3%. And the clear record holder by a wide margin was Croatia, which more than doubled its figure compared to the previous year (plus 126.6%). Based on this data, the overall trend of declining interest in citizenship is driven by representatives of non-EU countries.
For example, Turkey, which has traditionally supplied Germany with the most new citizens and, by the way, remains the undisputed leader: in 2014, 22500 recent residents of the country on the Bosporus received German passports. For comparison: second-place Poland provided 5900 citizens, and 'bronze' Croatia – 3900. Turkey's advantage is huge, but last year it nevertheless recorded a significant decline of 19.7%, especially pronounced in absolute numbers – minus 5500 potential citizens. That is almost the size of the entire positive contribution from Poles. Greeks supplied 20% fewer citizens to Germany, but the biggest drop was registered by Ukraine – 30.8%.
The situation with citizenship also varies across the federal states. For example, while Baden-Württemberg saw an increase of 4.6%, North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse registered a decline of 6.4%. There is also no clear trend from year to year within the same state: while Hamburg recorded an increase of about 1600 citizens in 2013, last year 840 fewer new passports were issued than the previous year.
Overall, the share of foreigners taking German citizenship remains very small: last year it was only 2.2% of the total number of those who meet the necessary requirements to obtain a German passport. By the way, there are currently about 10 million foreigners in Germany, including more than 7 million from European countries.
Turks still make up the largest group – 1 million 527 thousand (not counting those who have already obtained a German passport). They are followed by Poles – 674 thousand, in third place are Italians – 574 thousand. Russians (221 thousand) occupy seventh place, citizens of Ukraine – fifteenth (128 thousand), the Chinese settled in eighteenth place (110 thousand).
It should be noted that most Russian-speaking and those from former Soviet Union countries are not represented in these statistics, as they are ethnic Germans and holders of German passports. Interestingly, quite a few citizens of the prosperous USA (109 thousand) and Great Britain (104 thousand) also live in Germany.