A total of 881,220 individuals applying for asylum in the European Union in 2022 were first-time applicants, an increase of 64% over 2021, Eurostat said in data released on Tuesday.
According to Eurostat, the number of applicants in 2022 was the highest ever recorded in the EU following the 2015-2016 era, when the increase was attributed to the high number of refugees from Syria.
The top destination countries for asylum applicants in the EU were Germany, France, Spain, and Austria.
In 2022, a total of 384,245 individuals were granted protection. Of these, 44% were granted refugee status, 31% provisional protection status, and 25% humanitarian status.
The EU’s statistics service also said that by the end of April 2023, nearly 4 million non-EU nationals who had abandoned Ukraine took advantage of the special temporary protection status by the EU. The EU countries with the largest number of Ukrainians with protection status are Germany (28% of the total), Poland (25%), and the Czech Republic (8%).
SOURCE; ANA-MPA
