Asielaanvragen in EU boven 330.000 in 2012 (en)

In 2012, there were 332 000 asylum applicants 1 registered in the EU27 . It is estimated that around 90% of these were new applicants and around 10% were repeat applicants 2 . In 2011, there were 302 000 asylum applicants.

While Afghanistan (8% of the total number of applicants) remained in 2012 the first main country of citizenship 3 of these applicants, Syria (7%) became the second just ahead of Russia (7%), Pakistan (6%) and Serbia (6%).

These data 4 on asylum applicants in the EU27 are issued by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union .

Germany, France, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Belgium register 70% of all applicants

In 2012, the highest number of applicants was registered in Germany (77 500 applicants, or 23% of total applicants), followed by France (60 600, or 18%), Sweden (43 900, or 13%), the United Kingdom (28 200, or 8%) and Belgium (28 100, or 8%). These five Member States accounted for more than 70% of all applicants registered in the EU27 in 2012.

Compared with the population of each Member State, the highest rates of applicants registered were recorded in Malta (5 000 applicants per million inhabitants), Sweden (4 600), Luxembourg (3 900), Belgium (2 500) and Austria (2 100), and the lowest in Portugal (30), Estonia and Spain (both 55) and the Czech Republic (70).

In some Member States, a large proportion of the applicants came from a single country. The Member States with the highest concentrations were Malta (60% of the applicants came from Somalia ), Poland (57% from Russia ), Latvia (51% from Georgia ), Lithuania (48% from Georgia ), Estonia (45% from Georgia ) and Hungary (41% from Afghanistan ).

More than a quarter of first instance decisions were positive

In 2012 in the EU27 3 , 73% of first instance decisions 5 made on asylum applications were rejections, while 14% of applicants were granted refugee status, 10% subsidiary protection and 2% authorisation to stay for humanitarian reasons. It should be noted that first instance decisions made in 2012 may refer to applications registered in previous years.

If the proportion of positive decisions varies considerably among Member States, it should be kept in mind that the country of origin of applicants also differs greatly between Member States.

Asylum applicants, 2012

• * 

  Eurostat estimate including the Netherlands

** EU27 top three citizenships excluding data for the Netherlands

*** Kosovo under UN Security Council Resolution 1244

• : 

  Data not available

Data are rounded to the nearest 5.

First instance decisions , 2012

• - 

  Not applicable

• * 

  EU27 excluding the Netherlands

** One or two first instance decisions

• : 

  Data not available

Data are rounded to the nearest 5.

• - 

  Asylum applicant means a person having submitted an application for international protection or having been included in such application as a family member during the reference period. For reasons of simplicity, the term "applicant" has been used in this Release, because the data counts individuals rather than applications, which include in some cases several persons.

'Application for international protection' means an application for international protection as defined in Art. 2(g) of Council Directive 2004/83/EC, i.e. including requests for refugee status or for subsidiary protection status, irrespective of whether the application was lodged on arrival at border, or from inside the country, and irrespective of whether the person entered the territory legally (e.g. as a tourist) or illegally.

Within the same month every person being a subject of asylum application is counted only once, therefore repeat applications are not recorded if the first application has been lodged in the same month. However, such a repeat application will be recorded if lodged in a different reference month. It means that the annual figures, which are based on an aggregation of monthly data, may overestimate the number of persons applying for international protection.

• - 

  This proportion has been estimated on the basis of the share of repeat applicants available in 23 of the 27 Member States (Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom). These Member States covered 90% of all asylum applicants registered in the EU27 in 2012.

• - 

  EU27 figures on citizenships of main groups of asylum applicants and first instance decisions presented in this News Release do not include data for the Netherlands, which for technical reasons cannot deliver data for this publication.

• - 

  The data used for this publication are provided to Eurostat by the Ministries of Interior, Justice or immigration agencies of the Member States. Apart from statistics on new asylum applicants, these data are supplied by Member States according to the provisions of Article 4 of the Regulation (EC) 862/2007 of 11 July 2007 on Community statistics on migration and international protection.

• - 

  First instance decision means a decision made in response to an asylum application at the first instance level of the asylum procedure. The number of asylum applicants and the number of first instance decisions during the same reference period differs. This is due to the time lag between the date of the asylum application and the date of the decision on the asylum application. The duration of this time lag may vary considerably depending on the national asylum procedure and the administrative workload. An asylum application lodged in one reference period may therefore result in a decision in a later period, while some asylum decisions reported for that period may relate to applications lodged in previous reference periods.

Rejected applicant means a person covered by first instance decision rejecting application for international protection, such as, inter alia, decisions considering applications as inadmissible or as unfounded and decisions under priority and accelerated procedures, taken by administrative or judicial bodies during the reference period. Rejected applicants have the possibility to appeal against refusal. The outcomes of the appeals may overturn the results of the first instance decisions and may vary greatly between countries.

Person granted refugee status at first instance means a person covered by first instance decision granting refugee status, taken by administrative or judicial bodies during the reference period. Refugee status means status as defined in Art.2(d) of Directive 2004/83/EC within the meaning of Art.1 of the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees of 28 July 1951, as amended by the New York Protocol of 31 January 1967. According to the Art.2(c) of that Directive refugee means a third country national who, owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group, is outside the country of nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of that country, or a stateless person, who, being outside of the country of former habitual residence for the same reasons as mentioned above, is unable or, owing to such fear, unwilling to return to it.

Person granted subsidiary protection status at first instance means a person covered by first instance decision granting subsidiary protection status, taken by administrative or judicial bodies during the reference period. Subsidiary protection status means status as defined in Art.2(f) of Directive 2004/83/EC. According to the Art.2(e) of that Directive person eligible for subsidiary protection means a third country national or a stateless person who does not qualify as a refugee but in respect of whom substantial grounds have been shown for believing that the person concerned, if returned to his or her country of origin, or in the case of a stateless person, to his or her country of former habitual residence, would face a real risk of suffering serious harm and is unable, or, owing to such risk, unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of that country.

Person granted authorisation to stay for humanitarian reasons at first instance means a person covered by other first instance decision granting authorisation to stay for humanitarian reasons under national law concerning international protection, taken by administrative or judicial bodies during the reference period. It includes persons who are not eligible for international protection as currently defined in the first stage legal instruments, but are nonetheless protected against removal under the obligations that are imposed on all Member States by international refugee or human rights instruments or on the basis of principles flowing from such instruments. Examples of such categories include persons who are not removable on ill health grounds and unaccompanied minors.