15,125 Indians issued UK citizenship in 2006

London, Dec 12: A count of 15,125 Indians have been granted citizenship in Britain and a total of 154,000 nationals have been granted citizenship by Britain which is recored to be the highest compared to any other European Country in 2006, according to latest figures released by Eurostat, EU's statistics body.

Pakistan nationals granted British citizenship numbered to 10,260. Majority of the migrants were from Asia, Africa and former Eastern bloc countries and only a fraction of new Britons came from other EU states.

In 2006, 735,000 persons acquired citizenship of an European Union member state compared with 722,000 in 2005, 647,000 in 2003 and 483,000 in 1998.

The new citizens came mainly from non-EU European countries (27 per cent of the total number of citizenships acquired), Africa (27 per cent), Asia (22 per cent) and North and South America (12 per cent).

France granted citizenship to 148,000 foreign nationals, and Germany to 125,000.

The largest groups acquiring citizenship of an EU member state in 2006 were citizens of Turkey (64,000 persons), Morocco (48,000), Iraq (23,000), Ecuador (21,000) and Serbia and Montenegro (20,000).

Andrew Green of MigrationWatch UK said, "The incredible spread of countries of origin underlines the extent of the pressure on our community cohesion that stems from the massive levels of immigration that this Government has encouraged."

OneIndia News