Asylum Applications in the EU Increase After Four Years
After four years of slight annual decreases, asylum applications filed in the EU+ countries have shown an increase in 2019, compared to previous years, the most recent report of the European Asylum Support Office on asylum applications filed in 2019 shows.
In the EU+ in 2019 were filed over 714,000 applications, 13 per cent more compared to 2018, when the number of asylum seekers was 635,000, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
The countries with the main number of applicants remain those coming from Syria with 72,000 applications, followed by Afghanistan with 60,000 and Venezuela 45,000.
According to the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), Europe still needs to be vigilant and to strengthen the asylum practices.
“Today’s figures highlight that while we remain well below the situation of a few years ago, we need to continue to be vigilant and strengthen our asylum practices. A sustainable, fair and crisis-proof asylum system in the European Union is needed. To further feed into this process, on 26 June EASO will release its Annual Report, which will provide a more detailed picture of the state of the EU’s asylum system, as well as where it is heading,” EASO points out.
The main number of the applications came from foreigners who have visa-free entry to the Schengen Area. The largest number of them came from Latin America, El Salvador and Honduras.
Syrians, Afghanis and Venezuelans Were Top National Groups Filing Asylum Requests
The largest number of applicants who were interested in seeking asylum in the EU were from Syria with 72,000 applications, followed by Afghanistan with 60,000 and Venezuela 45,000.
The report reveals that the number of applicants from Afghanistan and Venezuela have also increased compared to 2018.
Compared to 2018, Afghans have shown more interest in seeking asylum in the EU, since they lodged triple more applications than in 2018, but decisions with recognition rates were fewer.
Although Venezuelans were more interested in seeking asylum in Europe compared to 2018, according to the European Asylum Support Office, they had a low recognition rate.
Low Recognition Rates for Most Visa-Liberalised Countries
The lowest recognition rate has been marked by the applicants from Western Balkan, where among all asylum applications filed by these countries the recognition rate was 1 per cent for North Macedonia and 6 per cent Albania.
Last year, during November 2019, there have been up to 900,000 pending cases in the EU+, while at the end of the year, more than 540,000 applications were awaiting the first-instance decision.