Which european country is the easiest to gain citizenship into?

Question

I am a US citizen and I want to move to europe. Which country is the easiest to move to from the USA?

Answer 1

Ireland or Italy will give you dual citizenship if you have certain ancestors who are from there.  IIRC you need a grandparent who was born there.  Germany used to grant citizenship based on ancestry but got rid of it since they were receiving huge numbers of immigrants from Eastern Europe who were like 1/8 German.

Once you get nationality in any European Union country you have the right to live and work anywhere in the European Union.

Answer 2

whichever country you pick it's quite a long term thing these days

for example you have to live for 12 years in Switzerland before you can apply for citizenship

Answer 3

I'm afraid you are going to get the same answer as to the question you raised earlier about wanting to go the UK to live

Basically immigration laws have tighted up generally over the last 5-10 years due to large influxes of immigrants and movements of people within the EU. From what I read the same is the case for the US as well.

Therefore unless you hold an EU/EFTA passport it is very difficult. You will either need to be (a) self-employed and show evidence of a thiving business (b) a highly skilled migrant with skills/experience which are in demand in Europe (and usually already receiving a high salary in your domestic country) or (c) sponsored by a company - and this is only normally done in the case that they cannot fulfil the job from the pool of labour within the EU or that you have specialist knowledge/experience

Also in principle you will need to speak the language of the country you work in (although there are exceptions to this if the company is an International one whose working language is e.g. English)

There are small differences but there generally the policies are very similar and restrictive for all EU countries, but I do not know about the non-EU ones.

This also does not gain you citizenship.  This is a seperate process which you can only initiate after having lived in the country for minium 5 years (several countries are more).  You will need to show evidence of integration, fluency in the local language, and in some counties a citizenship test is held.

So (at least for the EU countries) there is no "easiest" and you will face an uphill battle............. and by the way, nor is this a good reason to move to another country (just because it is easy to get in) is it?