THE numbers of UK citizens gaining the nationality of other EU nations has surged since the Brexit referendum.
In 2017 a total of 12,994 Britons acquired the nationality of one of the 17 member states, highlighted in new findings.
This compares with 5,025 in 2016 and only 1,800 in 2015.
German citizenship was the most frequently sought after, with a sharp rise in cases from just 594 in 2015 to 7,493 in 2017 for Germany.
The dramatic increase is thought to be caused by eligible UK citizens who can meet the criteria seeking to keep their legal rights attached to EU membership, and the 2017 figure is about seven times the 2015 level.
France was the second most popular nationality, jumping from 320 instances in 2015 to 1,518 last year.
Belgium was in third place and saw an increase from 127 to 1,381.
The number for Ireland rose from 54 in 2015 to 529 in 2017.
However, that did not include new Irish passport applications from a much larger number of people who already had entitlement to Irish citizenship, due to being born in Northern Ireland.
The findings do not show individuals leaving the UK for other EU nations, but show that an increasing amount of people with European family links are taking up dual citizenship to enjoy the rights of EU citizenship before Brexit in March 2019.
Those with new nationalities will retain the right to travel, live and work throughout the EU after the UK's departure, and may be able to pass these on to their children.
In most cases those involved have also retained their British citizenship and so have become dual nationals.
The surge in Britons obtaining EU citizenship was revealed in data obtained by the BBC from 17 out of 27 member states.
Only a limited number of UK citizens would qualify for citizenship of another EU state.
The increase was revealed amid reports of bitter cabinet splits over the future shape of Brexit.
Arch Brexiteer Michael Gove is said to have physically ripped up a report on Prime Minister Theresa May's preferred option for a new customs partnership with the EU.
Gove was reported to have been "livid" as he felt the government document wrongly suggested his Brexit working group had agreed the plan was viable.
The Tory environment secretary's spokesman said he felt it downplayed his objections to the proposed customs relationship.
The Government has talked publicly about two potential options for its customs relationship with the EU after Brexit.
One, a customs partnership, would mean the UK applies the EU's own tariffs and rules of origin to all goods arriving in the country, intended for the EU.
The other, known as maximum facilitation or max-fac, aims to employ new technology to remove the need for physical customs checks where possible.
Two groups of cabinet members were looking at each of the plans.
The document in question, prepared by civil servants, was supposed to represent the views of a group of Cabinet members looking at the customs partnership, including Gove.
Gove was reported to have "physically ripped it up to show he wasn't prepared to accept the document as a summary of their discussions".
Meanwhile, in a separate row, top diplomatic sources claimed Donald Trump said that the EU, Nato and the World Trade Organisation are bad for the US.
European Council president Donald Tusk told EU leaders that Trump posed a serious threat to western unity and it would be a mistake to dismiss the American President as stupid.
“He has a method and is serious in his mission against an international rules-based order,” Tusk told the leaders, according to a senior diplomatic source.
“He is on a mission against what we stand for.”
The dramatic developments came as Austria took over the rotating presidency of the EU with a pledge to better secure the 28-nation bloc’s external borders.
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