Asylum in the EU27

Recent data released by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, has revealed that the number of asylum applicants registered in the EU27 rose to 301 000 in 2011.

It is estimated that around 90% of these were new applicants, and around 10% were repeat applicants. In 2010, there were 259 000 asylum applicants.

In 2011, the main countries of citizenship of these applicants were Afghanistan (28 000 or 9% of the total number of applicants), Russia (18 200 or 6%), Pakistan (15 700 or 5%), Iraq (15 200 or 5%) and Serbia (13 900 or 5%).

In 2011, the highest number of applicants was registered in France (56 300 applicants), followed by Germany (53 300), Italy (34 100), Belgium (31 900), Sweden (29 700), the United Kingdom (26 400), the Netherlands (14 600), Austria (14 400), Greece (9 300) and Poland (6 900). These ten Member States accounted for more than 90% of applicants registered in the EU27 in 2011.

In some Member States, a large proportion of the applicants came from a single country. The Member States with the highest concentrations were Poland (63% of the applicants came from Russia), Latvia (52% from Georgia), Luxembourg (44% from Serbia), Lithuania (43% from Georgia), Bulgaria (39% from Iraq) and Hungary (38% from Afghanistan).

In 2011 in the EU27, 237 400 first instance decisions were made on asylum applications. There were 177 900 rejections (75% of decisions), 29 000 applicants (12%) were granted refugee status, 21 400 (9%) subsidiary protection and 9 100 (4%) authorisation to stay for humanitarian reasons.