The number of asylum applications recorded in the EU, Norway and Switzerland has increased by nearly one-third over last year as the bloc is expecting over one million applications this year.
According to statistics revealed by the EU Asylum Agency (EUAA), 519,000 people applied for asylum in the EU+ area, which includes Norway and Switzerland, since January. This represents a 28 per cent increase over the same time period in 2022 when 406,000 applications were recorded.
The Malta-based agency went on to predict that the million asylum seeker mark could be breached by the end of the year if current trends continue, compared to last year with 996,000 applications.
The first half of this year saw more applications than the previous six years, however, it is still expected that the number of asylum seekers this year will be lower than the peaks seen during the European Migrant Crisis when 1.4 million were registered in 2015 and 1.3 million in 2016.
While much has been made over the impact of the war in Ukraine on flows of asylum seekers into the EU, much of the movement of refugees fleeing the war with Russia occurred last year following the invasion, with an estimated four million from the former Soviet state currently residing in the European Union.
So far this year, Ukrainians have not even cracked the top ten of countries of origin for asylum seekers. Syrians and Afghanis represented the largest cohort, accounting for 67,000 and 55,000 of requests respectively, and representing 24 per cent of all cases.
Meanwhile, the EUAA recorded that they have seen a “notable increase in applications” by people from Venezuela, Colombia, and to a lesser extent, Peru, with the three South American countries representing 16 per cent of applications this year. This was followed by Turkey (7 per cent), Bangladesh (4 per cent) and Egypt, Georgia, and Morroco at three per cent each.
Germany accounted for the most applications of all 27 member states and Norway and Switzerland in the first half of the year at 30 per cent, nearly double that of the next countries, with Spain at 17 per cent and France at 16 per cent.
The increase in asylum applications comes as Brussels is attempting to impose a migrant redistribution programme across its member states in order to supposedly share the burden more fairly across the bloc. Those countries who refuse to abide by the diktat will face fines of €20,000 per each illegal they refuse to take in.
The scheme has been heavily criticised by conservative states such as Hungary and Poland, who argue that they effectively protected their borders while others like Germany opened theirs up to waves of migrants and therefore the burden should fall on Berlin and not Budapest or Warsaw.
Hungary has outright declared that it will refuse to pay the fines and the Polish government is set to put the topic before the people in a referendum that will coincide with the upcoming general election in October.
Poles will be asked: “Do we support the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa, in accordance with the forced relocation mechanism imposed by the European bureaucracy?”
The referendum will likely serve as a boost to the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, which has represented one of the staunchest defenders of national sovereignty and border controls in the EU.
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