In 2020, the EU recorded a 33% drop in asylum applications compared to the previous year and the number of irregular border crossings was the lowest in six years, said the European Commission on Friday 29 January, upon publishing statistics on the topic.
There has not been a uniform impact, however, with several local communities receiving unexpectedly large numbers of arrivals and the overall number of arrivals continuing to recover after experiencing a sharp drop around April, it added.
In the first ten months of 2020, 390,000 asylum applications (including 349,000 first time applications) were lodged in the EU, which is 33% less than in the same period of 2019. At the end of October 2020, the number of pending cases was 786,000, which was 15% less than at the end of 2019.
This “still means that at an EU level, the backlog represents more than a year’s worth of new applications, while there are also significant variations between Member States”. The positive decision rate – i.e. the number of asylum applications that resulted in a positive first-instance decision (before any appeal), including decisions granting humanitarian status – was 43%.
Irregular arrivals on the rise in some places
A 10% decrease in the number of illegal border crossings at EU borders (114,300 between January and November 2020) was observed compared to the same period in 2019, representing the lowest level in the last six years. There was also a significant decrease in illegal arrivals in countries of first entry along the Eastern Mediterranean route (-74%, 19,300), which was predominantly as a result of the low level of arrivals moving from Turkey to Greece.
However, illegals arrivals via the Central Mediterranean route (to Italy and Malta) increased (+154%) compared to the same period in 2019. In 2020, there were more than 34,100 of these arrivals, compared to nearly 11,500 in 2019. Arrivals in Spain, and in particular in the Canary Islands in 2020 have also increased significantly (+46%, 35,800) compared to 2019.
The Commission also notes that In Spain, since August 2020, the number of arrivals has been consistently higher than in 2019.
Link to statistics: http://bit.ly/3r3wPwQ (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)