Portugal among the least welcoming in the EU
Europe has received 535,000 asylum applications in the past, an increase of 28% compared to 2020, from 54% from Asia, 25% from Africa, 10% from Europe and 9% from America.
The statistics office of the European Commission revealed, this Wednesday, that the European Union (EU) received, last year, 28% more asylum applications compared to the previous year, in a total of 535 thousand cases. Portugal is among the last nine countries with the fewest requests (1350), with Germany, with 148175 cases, being the country most sought after by refugees.
According to Eurostat, more than half (54% or 288,005) of last year’s asylum applications came from Asia: 34% from Syria, 29% from Afghanistan, 9% from Iraq, 7% from Pakistan and many more. do Bangladesh. Since 2013, Syria has been the country of origin for most refugees seeking asylum in the EU. Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis were, last year, the group that made the most requests to Germany.
More than a quarter (28%) of asylum applications in the EU went to Germany in 2021, followed by France (19%, 103790 applications), Spain (12% or 62050 applications), Italy (8% with 4390 requests) and Austria (7% references to 36725 cases). “These five countries accounted for almost three quarters of asylum applications in the EU,” notes Eurostat.
Portugal appears in 23rd place (or ninth from the end, just ahead of Malta, the Czech Republic, Iceland, Latvia, Slovakia, Liechtenstein, Estonia and Hungary), with only 1350 asylum applications – even so, 450 more than in 2020 and 400 less than the 1735 in 2019).
Compared to the population of each Member State, notes Eurostat, the highest number of asylum seekers was registered in 2021 in Cyprus (14799 per million inhabitants), followed by Austria411) and Slovenia (2474) . Overall, the EU received 1196 asylum applications per million inhabitants.