Record Increase in Asylum Applications in the European Union

The European Union's migration agency announced that asylum applications in EU countries, Norway, and Switzerland rose by 28 percent in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year. The agency explained that approximately 519,000 asylum applications were submitted in these 29 countries between January and June, noting that "applications could exceed one million by the end of the year according to current trends." Syrians, Afghans, Venezuelans, Turks, and Colombians make up the primary asylum seekers, accounting for 44 percent of the applications. Germany was the country that received the highest number of applications, with 30 percent of the total, nearly double that of Spain (17 percent) and France (16 percent). The agency emphasized that due to this rise, many European countries are "under pressure to process these applications," while the number of cases awaiting resolution increased by 34 percent in 2022. Approximately 41 percent of applications received a positive response in the first phase. The asylum applications in the first half of the year are the highest for this period since 2015-2016. During 2015-2016, amid the ongoing Syrian war, asylum applications reached 1.3 million in 2015 and 1.2 million in 2016. In 2022, the number was 994,945.