Asylum applications to EU in 2024 down 13%

ISTANBUL

The number of asylum applications to EU dropped 13% to 912,000 in 2024, the 27-member bloc's statistical authority said on Thursday.

Last year, Syrians lodged 148,000 first-time applications (16% of the overall applications), followed by Venezuela with 72,800 (8%), and Afghanistan ranked third with 72,200 (8%), Eurostat data showed.

Syria has been the main nationality of asylum seekers in the EU since 2013. Last December, its decades-old Assad regime was toppled, also bringing an end to the country’s 14-year civil war, which sent a flood of immigrants to neighboring countries and beyond.

With 229,700 first-time asylum applicants registered last year, Germany continued to be the EU country with the highest number of applicants, accounting for a quarter of all first-time applicants in the EU.

Spain (164,000, 18%), Italy (151,100, 17%), France (130,900, 14%), and Greece (69,000, 8%) followed Germany; together they accounted for 82% of all first-time asylum applicants in the EU last year.

Compared with the population of each EU country, the highest number of registered first-time asylum applicants in 2024 was to the Greek Cypriot Administration (7.2 first-time applicants per 1,000 people), followed by Greece (6.6), Ireland and Spain (each 3.4), and Luxembourg (3.2).

Relative to the EU population, there were two first-time asylum applicants per 1,000 people in 2024.

Eurostat added that 36,300 unaccompanied minors also applied, with 32% coming from Syria (11,600), followed by applications from Afghanistan (5,700, 16%), Egypt (3,000, 8%), Somalia (2,400, 7%), and Guinea (1,300, 4%).