Newly published figures from Eurostat, the statistical agency of the European Union, have revealed that the total number of asylum seekers granted protection status across the bloc’s 27 member states rose 40%, from 275,040 in 2022 to current numbers at 384,245.
Of the 384,245 asylum seekers who were granted some form of protection status by the European Union last year, 44% received refugee status, 31% were given subsidiary protection, and 25% received humanitarian protection.
Compared to the previous year, the number of refugee statuses granted by the EU in 2022 rose by 22%, while subsidiary and humanitarian protection statuses granted jumped by 48% and 72%, respectively.
Of all the EU member states, Germany by far granted the largest number of asylum seekers protection status, issuing almost 160,000 positive decisions in 2022, which corresponds to 41%, or two out of five positive decisions made by all EU countries. The figure, it should be noted, does not include Ukrainian refugees.
Well behind Germany, in second place, was France, which granted 13% of EU asylum requests, followed by Italy with 10%, and Spain with 9%.
Roughly one-third (29%) of asylum seekers whose applications were approved were Syrian nationals. Another 23% came from Afghanistan, while 6% were Venezuelans. Most Syrians and Afghan asylum seekers, 68% and 55%, were given protection status in Germany. Spain, on the other hand, granted protection status to 92% of Venezuelan asylum seekers.
The figures published by Eurostat come two months after the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) reported that 966,000 asylum applications were registered across the European Union’s 27 member states, Switzerland, and Norway in 2022, the highest figure recorded since the height of the European migrant crisis of 2015 and 2016.
It is worth noting that the number of asylum applications registered by the EUAA and the positive decisions recorded by Eurostat do not include the more than four million Ukrainian refugees who were, under a special mechanism, automatically granted temporary protection in the EU.
