Eurostat compares MIPEX to naturalisation rates

 
In the recent years, researchers have developed a considerable number of indicators trying to assess the national policies concerning acquisitions of citizenship in the EU. Broadly speaking, these indicators can be classified into two classes: indicators of policy output and indicators of policy outcome. The former aim to provide an evaluation of the different citizenship policies, associating a quantitative score to the legal systems and procedures in force in different countries. The latter, instead, try to measure the concrete effect of such policies, building indicators on the basis of observed data (a typical example of policy outcome indicator is the naturalisation rate). 
Among the policy output indicators, a prominent place is taken by the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX), an indicator developed by a project co-financed by the European Union and led by the British Council and the Migration Policy Group. MIPEX aims to evaluate the governments' activity to promote migrant integration and covers several policy areas including labour market, family reunification and access to nationality. 
The first edition of MIPEX was published in 2004 and the current version (MIPEX III, presented here) in March 2011. The indicator is available on-line and covers the EU-27 Member States plus Norway, Switzerland, Canada and the United States. 
The indicator is based on scores expressed by a panel of experts in each policy area, with the top score being attributed to the highest international standard (see the methodological notes for further details on how the indicator is constructed). Figure 6 presents, for all the countries under study, the value of the indicator for the policy area 'access to nationality' and shows that within the EU there is a large gap (about 18 points) between the countries above the EU average and those below. 

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