Hot Spots
03/10/2016
Europe's Asylum Numbers
Eurostat, the official statistics arm of the European Union, released its report on asylum seekers for 2015 and 1,265,000 first time seekers applied for international protection in the Member States of the EU, a number more than double that of the previous year.
The number of Syrians seeking international protection doubled in 2015 compared with the previous year to reach 362,800, while the number of Afghans almost quadrupled to 178,200 and that of Iraqis multiplied by 7 to 121,500.
In 2015, the highest number of first time applicants was registered in Germany (441,800 first time applicants, or 35% of all first time applicants in the EU Member States), followed by Hungary (174,400), Sweden (156,100), Austria (85,500), Italy (83,200) and France (70,600).
Now these are those who actually registered. Greece, for example, had only 11,370 first time asylum applicants, but tens of thousands more entered the country. They just went on to either register elsewhere or slipped through the cracks because, as was the case in Greece all of 2015, their system was overwhelmed and many weren’t logged in and/or fingerprinted as they were supposed to be.
Of the 368,800 Syrians who applied for asylum in 2015, 158,700 did so in Germany.
Back to Hungary, their high number is a major reason why they shut their border in the latter part of last year. They, too, were overwhelmed. 64,000 of the 174,400 applying there were Syrian...maybe.
Bottom line, who the heck knows? So many of these migrants are using fake passports and lying about their country of origin, especially if they’re from the Balkans or Pakistan, where under EU guidelines they aren’t supposed to be entering the union for ‘economic hardship,’ vs. those seeking legitimate protection from Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan.
Many of those who apply for asylum are also later denied. The numbers are useful, though, in highlighting the tremendous stress on the respective countries represented by the hordes.
*The definition of ‘Application for international protection’ means an application for international protection as defined in Art. 2(g) of Council Directive 2004/83/EC, i.e. including requests for refugee status or for subsidiary protection status, irrespective of whether the application was lodged on arrival at the border, or from inside the country, and irrespective of whether the person entered the territory legally (e.g. as a tourist) or illegally.
Source: Eurostat
Hot Spots will return in a few weeks.
Brian
