The Czech Republic is the country where it is by far the most difficult to obtain asylum out of all EU countries, according to the latest data from Eurostat, Europe’s statistical agency.
This data indicates that Czech Republic is refusing to bend to pro-migration forces within the European Union who want the country loosen its asylum application rules, and the trend is only going against asylum seekers who find it increasingly difficult to obtain asylum in the Czech Republic.
E15.cz reports that last year, 6.9 percent of foreigners who applied for asylum in the Czech Republic succeeded, which is the least amount of successful applications in the country in the last ten years.
At the same time, the number of applicants is on the rise, with 1,922 applications last year, which is even more than during the height of the migration crisis in 2015. At that time, around a third of applicants succeeded with their asylum application.
Czechia and Germany are world’s apart on the issue of asylum seekers
According to Eurostat, the Czech Republic is known as the toughest country for an asylum application to succeed, which is a remarkable turnaround from 2015, when it was one of the countries that accepted one of the highest proportion of asylum seekers, with over 50 percent of applications accepted.
In Germany, Spain, and Slovakia, up to two-thirds of asylum applicants succeeded last year, while in the Czech Republic, it was not even one-tenth of the applicants.
A number of German cities have even said they want the German government to take in more migrants, a viewpoint entirely at odds with the stance taken by the current Czech government.
“The nationality composition of asylum applicants in the Czech Republic differs significantly from other European Union countries,” a spokeswoman of the Ministry of the Interior, Hana Malá, pointed out.
Last year, people from Armenia, Ukraine, Georgia, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, and Russia asked for international protection in the Czech Republic.
“It is clear that the vast majority of applicants do not come from war areas, but they are from safe countries,” said Malá, adding that many foreigners use the Czech Republic as a transit country.
Therefore, many requests remain pending, as the person leaves the country in the meantime.
Czech Republic seeks to tighten its asylum laws
In the Czech Republic, asylum is granted to foreigners facing the threat of persecution in their homeland for political, racial, religious, or nationality reasons. The Interior Ministry reviews each case individually.
Currently, there are more than a 1,000 people in Czechia who were granted asylum or have some kind of supplementary protection.
Although some NGOs want the Czech Republic to grant asylum to more people, the Ministry of the Interior has prepared an amendment to the Asylum Act, which further tightens the conditions for obtaining asylum. For example, a person, who has committed a serious crime, will not be entitled to asylum status.
“If a foreigner seeks asylum in the Czech Republic and meets all the conditions, but has committed a robbery, he will not be granted asylum according to the new legislation,” said Interior Minister Jan Hamáček in the autumn. He added that these people can still use the so-called sufferance visa, meaning that the Czech Republic will “suffer” with them staying in the country until they can be sent back to their homeland.
“The amendment will allow a significant acceleration in the process of returning migrants to their countries after the situation over there calms down,” explained Hamáček.
The amendment has yet to be submitted to the government.
