Malta registers highest asylum application rate in 2011
Malta has registered the highest rate of asylum applicants when compared to population rates within the EU in 2011, with 4,500 applications submitted.
Statistics published today by the European Commission, show that Malta tops the list of all the EU27, followed by Luxembourg 4,200, Sweden 3,200, Belgium 2,900 and Cyprus 2,200.
In some Member States, a large proportion of the applicants came from a single country.
The Member States with the highest concentrations were Poland where 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 total, during 2011, there were 301,000 asylum applicants registered in the EU27.
It is estimated that around 90% of these were new applicants and around 10% were repeat applicants.
The figure for 2011 represents an increase over 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%).
These data on asylum applicants in the EU27 are issued by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.
Highest number of applicants recorded in France, Germany and Italy 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.
However, Eurostat statistics show that three quarters of first instance decisions were rejections.
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. It should be noted that first instance decisions made in 2011 may refer to applications registered in previous years.
