EU sees numbers of asylum seekers drop
08.10.07 @ 09:28
The number of asylum seekers in the EU has been progressively decreasing since the 1990s.
Asylum demands received in Europe last year were still more numerous than anywhere else in the world (Photo: wikipedia)
From 2001 to 2006, the numbers of applications have dropped by almost 50 percent, with a 15 percent drop noted in 2006 alone if compared to the previous year, recently released figures from the EU statistics office Eurostat show.
In 2006, the drops were most substantial in Slovenia (almost 70%), Latvia (60%), Cyprus, Austria and France (around 40%).
But France was still among the member states receiving the most asylum applications with 26,300, just after the UK which was first with 27,900.
Sweden (24,300), Germany (21,000) and the Netherlands (14,465) were the other countries topping the list.
But two of the smallest member states, Cyprus and Malta, were the ones receiving the most asylum applications relative to the size of their population – six per thousand inhabitants in Cyprus and 3.1 in Malta respectively.
Against the general trend, the number of asylum applications in these two member states increased over the last five years primarily due to their geographic location on the route of asylum seekers heading to the EU, according to the survey.
Some other member states such as Lithuania, Sweden, Greece and Hungary also noted a rise of asylum demands (44%, 38%, 35% and 32% respectively).
All in all, the first years of the 21st century saw less people aiming to find asylum in the EU than the 1990s, due to an end to some political crises and armed conflicts – including on the European continent itself.
The number of asylum seekers strongly increased until 1992 – notably in Germany - and has slowly been decreasing since. A new peak was noted after 1996 following the Yugoslav wars - over 370,000 demands were received in the then 15-member EU at the time.
In 2006, 192,300 applications for asylum were received in the EU – compared to 424,170 in 2001.
However, asylum demands received in Europe last year were still more numerous than anywhere else in the world, according to the survey.
Applications came mostly from Iraq (19,200 applications), Russia (12,800) and Serbia and Montenegro – still counted as one state (12,700).
Other countries from where there were many demands were Afghanistan and Turkey.
