This article describes recent developments in relation to numbers of asylum applicants and decisions on asylum applications in the European Union (EU). Asylum is a form of international protection given by a state on its territory. It is granted to a person who is unable to seek protection in his/her country of citizenship and/or residence, in particular for fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.

Main statistical findings

Asylum applicants

Having peaked in 1992 (672 thousand applications in the EU-15) when the EU Member States received many asylum applicants from former Yugoslavia and again in 2001 (424 thousand applications in the EU-27), the number of asylum applications within the EU-27 fell to just below 200 thousand by 2006.

Focusing just on applications from citizens of non-member countries (see Figure 1), there was a gradual increase in the number of asylum applications within the EU-27 and later the EU-28 through to 2012, after which the number of asylum seekers rose to 431 thousand in 2013, 627 thousand in 2014 and close to 1.3 million in 2015. The 2015 number of asylum applications within the EU-28 was almost double the number recorded within the EU-15 in 1992.