The number of asylum applications lodged in the EU in 2018 has decreased for the third consecutive year and has returned to levels comparable to those before the 2015 migration crisis, the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) said in a report published on 24 June.
In 2018, 664,480 applications were filed, a decrease of 10% compared to 2017. 9% of these applications were not new applications.
According to the EASO, Syrians (10%), Afghans and Iraqis (7%) were the three main population groups to have applied for asylum. The top 10 nationalities included citizens of Pakistan, Nigeria, Iran, Turkey, as well as Venezuela and Albania (3% of applications) and Georgia (3%).
These persons filed their applications mainly in Germany, which remains the leading country among the countries requested for the 7th consecutive year with 184,180 applications, followed by France (120,425 applications), Greece (66,965), Italy and Spain. These five countries received almost three-quarters of all applications filed.
It should be noted that asylum applications were up 11% in the first months of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018, with more than 290,000 applications. But the EASO does not suggest that this will necessarily mean a change in trend in 2019.
Link to the report: https://bit.ly/2XnLd8f (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)