As of January 2024, 85,000 asylum applications have been filed in EU countries

Brussels – In January 2024, 85,855 asylum seekers applied for international protection for the first time in EU countries. In the same period last year, they had been 83,310, 3 per cent fewer. To them must be added the 7,180 who made a subsequent application: In all, there were 93,055 applications received in the first month of the year.

This results from the monthly data on asylum published today (April 22) by the Statistical Office of the European Union. Looking at the last few months, there were 83,740 applications in December, while from September to November, they had exceeded 100,000. In 2023, the European Union recorded a total of 1,048,900 first applications for asylum, with a 20 per cent increase in applications for international protection on arrival on EU soil compared to the previous year.

In January, 40 per cent of first-time applicants were men between 18 and 34 years old. Syrians (13,445), Afghans (7,185), Turks (6,380) and Venezuelans (6,210) were the most represented nationalities.

Three out of four asylum claims in Germany, Spain, Italy and France

Germany (26,375), Spain (13,705), Italy (12,920) and France (11,620) continued to receive the highest number of asylum seekers, accounting for 75 per cent of all first-time applicants in the EU. However, relative to each member country’s population, the highest rates of registered first-time applicants in January 2024 were in Cyprus (106.0) and Greece (58.7), well above the EU average of 19.1 applications per one hundred thousand people.

From Syria and Afghanistan also came the largest number of asylum applications from unaccompanied minors: 810 Syrians and 480 Afghans, for a total of 2,655 applications in January 2024. The EU countries that received the most asylum applications from unaccompanied minors were Germany (935), the Netherlands (385), Greece (255), Italy (225), and Spain (215).