Almost 730,000 applications were made in 2017, a 44% drop on the 1.3m made in 2016

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Fewer people sought asylum in the European Union last year, although numbers remain higher than before the arrival of 1 million people in 2015 triggered a political crisis that continues to divide Europe.

Showing a sharp drop in asylum claims, the latest report from the EU’s asylum office was published on Monday after emergency talks in the German government over asylum policy and a bitter standoff between EU nations over a migrant rescue ship that eventually docked in Spain after being banned from Italy and Malta.



The EU’s asylum office counted 728,470 applications for international protection in 2017, a 44% reduction on the 1.3m applications the previous year. More than 1 million people entered the EU in 2015, many fleeing the war in Syria.



Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan remain the most frequent countries of origin for asylum seekers, accounting for 29% of all claims.

The downward trend of asylum claims continued in the first four months of 2018, the EU asylum office said, although numbers have still not returned to pre-crisis levels. About 460,000 people applied for asylum in EU countries in 2013.

The fall in asylum applications reflects a sharp drop in people making the hazardous journey over the eastern Mediterranean to Greece and the central Mediterranean to Italy, although there has been an increase in people travelling from west Africa to Spain, albeit from a lower base.



Germany continues to receive more applications for asylum than any other country in Europe, with 222,560 claims in 2017, folowed by Italy, France and Greece. The UK was in fifth place, with 33,780 applications, accounting for 4.6% of all EU asylum claims.



But the backlog remains high: 954,100 claims are awaiting a decision, including 443,640 in Germany, according to the EU asylum office.

The EU has spent more than two years trying to agree common asylum rules, but talks are deadlocked over whether there should be a compulsory system for allocating refugees to different member states.



EU leaders will discuss the question at an EU summit next week, although a German government spokesman dismissed reports of an emergency meeting taking place this weekend.

Angela Merkel told her Conservative allies that she would report back on the results of negotiations with the EU on 1 July, while rebuffing an ultimatum from her interior minister, Horst Seehofer. The former leader of the Bavarian CSU, the sister party to Merkel’s CDU, said police should turn back migrants at the border if there was no progress within two weeks.

The German chancellor dismissed the threat, saying there would be “no automatism” if no European deals were found. “Turning away migrants at our borders at the heart of Europe will lead to negative domino effects that could hurt Germany, and put into question European unity,” she said.

In a diplomatic push before the summit, Merkel will meet the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on Tuesday, following her talks on Monday with Italy’s new prime minister, Giuseppe Conte.

Sophie Magennis of the United Nations refugee agency said the standoff over the Aquarius rescue ship brought into stark relief the importance of the EU agreeing on a mechanism to share refugees.



“Now really is the time for EU member states to come together and to agree on their approach to this issue,” she said. “We do not have a crisis of numbers, we continue to a crisis of political will and that is something that needs to be addressed.”



Talks are deadlocked over whether there should be a compulsory quota system to allocate asylum seekers around the EU, after seven countries rejected a compromise proposal earlier this month. Hungary leads a central European bloc that insist any mandatory quotas are unacceptable, while Italy has argued any reform is worthless without compulsory relocation to ease the pressure on frontline states.

The quota clash is holding up progress on other EU asylum reforms, such as greater harmonisation of procedures and conditions in reception centres across the bloc.

One of the biggest differences is recognition of asylum claims: while non-EU Switzerland granted asylum to 90% of claimants, the Czech Republic gave refugee status to only 12% of people on their first application.