Report of the European Union Asylum Agency on the significant increase of asylum seekers in 2023

According to the report of the international group Tasnim news agency quoting “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” newspaper, the number of asylum seekers in Europe last year significantly exceeded one million people. According to the annual report of the European Union Asylum Agency based on the island of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea, which was published in Valletta on Wednesday, a total of 1.14 million applications were registered in the 27 EU member states, as well as Norway and Switzerland, which is 18 percent compared to the previous year. has increased.

According to the European Union Asylum Agency, most of the applicants came from Syria and then Afghanistan. At the end of the year, after the start of the new Gaza war in October, Palestinians also increasingly wanted to go to Europe. Germany remains the most important target country so far, with 334,000 new applications registered between January and December 2023, according to the data.

In the previous year The total number of asylum applications was just under one million and 996,000. However, significantly more asylum applications were registered in 2015 (1.4 million) and 2016 (1.3 million). Of course, these statistics do not include more than 4.4 million refugees from Ukraine who became refugees in the European Union as a result of the Russian war and received temporary protection.

The figures related to Germany is slightly different, with data from the responsible federal office in Nuremberg reporting about 329,000 requests for the entire year. In any case, Germany accounted for almost a third of all applications, followed by France (167,000) and Spain (162,000). Britain, which is no longer part of the European Union, will not release its figures until the end of the week. Calculated per capita, the most applications were received in Cyprus – one application for every 78 residents. By comparison, in Germany it was one in 252.

Among the countries of origin, Syria (181,000) led the way, where civil war has lasted more than ten years. which is going on and these statistics were 38% more than the previous year. However, the number of requests (114,000) from the people of Afghanistan, where the Taliban are now in power, fell. Türkiye was also slightly above the 100,000 mark (101,000). 11,600 requests from Palestinians were also registered during the year, two-thirds more than the previous year.

In December, the European Union decided to overhaul the system. Common asylum took its toll with significant restrictions on illegal immigrants. Accordingly, in the future, people who have little chance of recognition will go through accelerated asylum procedures at the external borders of the European Union. Europe recently pointed to the significant increase in the influx of refugees to the European Union this year due to the increasing instability in many regions and predicted the continuation of the increasing trend of the influx of refugees in 2024.

Nina Gregory, director of the European Union Asylum Agency (EUAA), stated that she does not expect the number of asylum seekers to decrease. He said: On the contrary: “The world around us is becoming more unstable day by day. Therefore, the need to support refugees in 2024 and beyond will not decrease and in some cases will even increase.” According to him, 2024 will be a “challenging year”.

At the same time, the European Union and its members are constantly intensifying their policies towards asylum seekers.

In this regard, recently, after years of discussion, the representatives of the EU countries and the parliament reached an agreement on fundamental reforms in the asylum system and the tightening of strictures against refugees.

Based on this agreement, there should be uniform border procedures at the external borders of the European Union in the future. In particular, there are plans to get much tougher on people from countries that are considered relatively safe. Accordingly, until a decision is made on the asylum request, people should be able to be accommodated in detention camps under prison-like conditions.

According to this plan, the distribution of asylum seekers which seek support among EU countries will be reorganized using a “solidarity mechanism”. Countries that do not want to accept refugees must provide other support, for example in the form of cash payments.

In addition to this agreement, EU member states also Each of them has independently put very strict and restrictive measures against refugees in order to prevent them from invading their countries.

end of message/