New asylum applications up 40% in first quarter of 2015

The number of new asylum applications increased by 40 per cent in the first three months of this year compared with the last three months of last year.

There were 625 applications for asylum between January and March, compared to 455 in between October and December, the latest figures from Eurostat show.

The numbers represent 0.3 per cent of the almost 200,000 asylum applications in Europe in the first quarter of the year.

Of the Irish applicants 262, or 42 per cent, are from Pakistan, with 45 (7 per cent) from Nigeria and 40 (6 per cent) from Albania.

Across the EU there were 184,815 first-time requests for asylum.

Though this is at about the same level as at the end of last year – there were 184,200 in the last quarter of 2014 - it represents an 86 per cent increase on the numbers in the first quarter of last year.

The largest numbers are coming from Kosovo. Some 48,870 Kosovars applied for asylum in the EU in the first quarter of this year, or 26 per cent of the total

Impoverished country

Tens of thousands of Kosovo Albanians, most of them Muslims, have reportedly been fleeing the impoverished country, travelling through Serbia across the Hungarian border.

Hungary had more than 30,000 asylum applications in the first quarter of the year, 22,830 of them from Kosovars. Hungary also had the highest number of applications per head of its own population.

Some 16 per cent of first time applicants in the EU came from Syria (29,095) while seven per cent came from Afghanistan (12,910).

The largest number, 73,100, applied for asylum in Germany, representing 40 per cent of the total first time applicants, followed by Hungary, which accepted 32,800 or 18 per cent of all applicants.

“They were followed at a distance by Italy (15,200, or 8 per cent), France (14,800, or 8 per cent), Sweden (11,400, or 6 per cent), Austria (9,700 or 5 per cent) and the United Kingdom (7,300 or 4 per cent),” says Eurostat.

Ireland received 136 first time asylum applications per 1 million inhabitants in the first quarter of 2015, compared with an EU-wide rate of 365 first time asylum applicants per million inhabitants.

The highest numbers were recorded in Hungary (3,322 first time applicants per million), well ahead of Sweden (1,184 per million), Austria (1,141 per million) and Germany (905 per million).

The lowest rates, at fewer than 50 applicants per million, were recorded in 11 member states - Croatia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland and Spain.