The number of migrants granted asylum in the European Union neared 300,000 in 2019, representing a slight decrease in 2019 compared to the previous year, according to the Statistical Office of the EU (Eurostat).
On Monday, Eurostat published its latest report, which says that in total, 295,800 seekers were granted asylum in the EU in 2019, while 28 percent of them were Syrians.
Syrians were the largest group of asylum beneficiaries. 48 percent of all seekers were granted refugee status, 28 percent received subsidiary protection, and 25 percent obtained asylum under humanitarian protection.
Year-on-year, the total number of successful asylum seekers decreased by 6 percent.
In 2018, the EU granted asylum to 316,200 people.
According to the statistics, Syrians remain the largest group of beneficiaries of protection status. In total, 78,600 Syrians received the status in 2019, 71 percent of whom received it in Germany.
The second-largest group of successful asylum seekers were Afghans, with 41 percent of them receiving asylum status in Germany.
Venezuelans followed with 37,500 cases, representing a substantial increase in the number of asylum seekers from the South American country. In 2018, there were just 1,000 of them in the EU. Most of the Venezuelans, 94 percent of the EU total, were granted protection in Spain.
Other refugees most often came from Iraq (7 percent), Turkey, Eritrea, Nigeria, Iran, and Somalia (3 percent), and 2 percent had Pakistani roots.
Germany’s positive recognition rate was 42 percent in the case of 154,175 applications. Compared to Germany, the rate was higher in Great Britain, Greece (53 percent), and Austria (50 percent).
France followed with 14 percent of the positive decisions, then comes Spain (13 percent) and Italy (10 percent).
Luxembourg has the highest positive recognition rate at 57 percent, although it only examined 1,180 asylum applications.
Eurostat says that these four states, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy, issued over three-quarters of all the positive asylum decisions in the EU.
Recognition rates differ from country to country and depend on the asylum seekers’ nationality.
The report says that citizens of Georgia can expect only a 4-percent recognition rate resulting in a favorable decision, whereas Venezuelans have a 96-percent chance to succeed, followed by Syrians (85 percent) and Eritreans (81 percent).
At the end of last year, Spain, Germany, France, and Greece respectively registered the highest numbers of first-time asylum applicants.
In a separate report, Eurostat noted that 14,000 unaccompanied minors registered as asylum seekers in the EU in 2019.
An estimated 4 million illegal immigrants lived in the EU in 2017, according to Pew Research.
