The number of asylum seekers in the EU has been progressively decreasing since the 1990s.
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 membe...
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