Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the statement of the Minister for Europe of 9 March 2016 that after 10 years only about 2.2 per cent of the refugees who arrived in Germany have been granted German citizenship, what source that figure is based on; how that figure was calculated; and what information his Department holds on comparative figures for other EU countries.

The figure of 2.2 per cent is the percentage of foreign nationals resident for at least ten years in Germany who have become naturalised German citizens. It is known as the “Exhausted Naturalisation Potential” and is calculated by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF).

The source is the 2014 Migration Report, published in January this year which can be found on the BAMF website:

http://www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/DE/Publikationen/Migrationsberichte/migrationsbericht-2014.html

Comparative figures for other EU states are not held centrally by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.