German Asylum Seeker Rate Increase Over Double EU Average This Year

In the first nine months of 2021, Germany saw a 33 per cent increase in the number of asylum seeker arrivals, a figure more than twice that of the European Union as a whole.

Germany saw a total of 100,240 asylum applications in the first nine months of this year, an increase of 33 per cent from 2020, while all European Union member states saw 355,955 asylum applications, according to the European Union statistics agency Eurostat.

In 2020, Germany made up around a quarter, or 24.3 per cent, of all of the asylum claims in the European Union but this year the number has increased to 28.4 per cent as the country remains the main destination for many asylum seekers entering the EU, German newspaper Die Welt reports.

France follows Germany as the second most popular destination for asylum seekers and made up 20 per cent of the applications this year, followed by Spain and Italy. The four countries make up two-thirds of all of the asylum claims in the EU.

Eurostat also reports that the largest numbers of asylum seekers come originally from Syria and Afghanistan with the two countries representing around a third of the total number of asylum applications.

Since the fall of the Afghan government in August to the Taliban, many have been predicting a wave of asylum seekers from the country and the  European Union border agency Frontex announced in September it was preparing for a potential surge.

“Our expectation is that depending on what’s going on in Afghanistan of course people in need of international protection might try to flee from Afghanistan. But what will very likely happen first is that the Afghan communities living abroad might try to move to the European Union,” Frontex  Director-General Fabrice Leggeri said.

Frontex also noted late last month that illegal crossings into the European Union had increased by as much as 70 per cent in the first ten months of 2021 compared to the same period last year and that there had been significant growth in illegal crossings in the western Balkans and the Central Mediterranean.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com