Asylum applications rose by 28% in the first half of 2023 in the EU

The European Union's migration agency announced on Tuesday that asylum applications in EU member states, as well as Norway and Switzerland, during the first half of 2023, have increased by 28 percent compared to the same period the previous year.

Approximately 519,000 asylum applications were submitted in these twenty-nine countries between January and June, as stated by the agency, considering that "the number of applications could exceed one million by the end of the year based on current trends."

Syrians, Afghans, Venezuelans, Turks, and Colombians constitute the main asylum seekers, accounting for 44 percent of the applications.

The first half of 2023 marks the highest number of asylum applications for this period since 2015-2016. During the 2015-2016 wave of migration to Europe, especially due to the ongoing Syrian conflict, asylum applications reached 1.3 million in 2015 and 1.2 million in 2016. In 2022, the number was 994,945.

Germany received the largest number of applications, making up 30% of the total, nearly twice as many as Spain (17 percent) and France (16 percent).

The agency emphasized that due to this increase, many European countries are facing "pressure to process these applications," with the number of pending cases increasing by 34 percent in 2022.

Around four million Ukrainians who fled the Russian invasion of their country benefit from a temporary protection mechanism in the European Union.



AFP