(Reuters) – First-time applications from people seeking asylum in European Union countries fell by 13% last year, the first decline in them since 2020, data from the bloc’s statistics office Eurostat showed on Thursday.
Eurostat reported 912,000 first-time asylum requests from non-EU citizens across the bloc’s 27 member states, down from more than 1 million in 2023.
Syrians made up the largest share of applicants, like every year since 2013, accounting for 16% of the first-time requests last year. The next biggest groups came from Venezuela and Afghanistan, accounting for 8% each.
Eurostat said nearly 148,000 first-time applications came from Syria in 2024, down 19.2% from a year earlier.
Of the total number of applications for international protection in EU countries, more than three quarters were received by Germany, Spain, Italy and France. Unaccompanied minors made up 3.9% of the applicants, Eurostat said.
(Reporting by Anna Peverieri, Leo Marchandon and Mara Vîlcu in Gdansk; editing by Milla Nissi)
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