Monthly asylum data released by Eurostat on asylum applications on Monday indicated that 74,695 first-time asylum applicants (non-EU citizens) applied for international protection in EU countries in July 2024, a 7.5% decrease compared to July 2023.
There were also 7,145 subsequent applicants, representing a 26.2% increase compared with the same month last year. The EU total rate of first-time asylum applicants in July 2024 was 16.6 per hundred thousand people.
Compared with the population of each EU country (on 1 Jan. 2024), the highest rates of first-time applicants were recorded in Greece, standing at 55.1%, ahead of Ireland at 32.2%.
Syrians remained the largest group of people seeking asylum as first-time applicants. They were followed by asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Venezuela.
Germany, Italy, Spain, and France continued to receive the highest number of first-time asylum applicants, accounting for 74% of all first-time applicants in the EU.
Data also reveals that 2,985 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum for the first time in the EU, most of them coming from Syria, Afghanistan, and Egypt.
According to the data, Germany was the EU country that received the highest number of asylum applications from unaccompanied minors, with 750 underage individuals wishing to remain in the country, followed by Bulgaria with 455 minors, Greece with 420 asylum seekers, the Netherlands with 355, and Spain with 325 seeking asylum, respectively.
It is worth noting that, on an annual level, in 2023 over one million first-time asylum applications by non-EU citizens were recorded for international protection in countries of the EU.
This is an increase of 20.1 % compared with 2022 and it is the highest number since the peaks recorded during the refugee crisis related to the war in Syria in 2015 and 2016.
