The European Asylum Support Office (EASO) said that in January 2018, there were 54,000 applications for international protection from the 28 member states of the European Union together with Norway and Switzerland (EU+) while 60,000 decisions were made regarding pending applications. Despite these figures, about 450,000 cases are still awaiting a decision.
Although these numbers are lower compared to most of 2017, the figures show that the asylum situation in Europe still isn't free from the effects of the peak in applications in 2015-2016.
Decrease in pending cases since 2016
EASO said that the EU+ countries are issuing more initial decisions on asylum requests compared to the number of new applications received, which reflects "the success of the investment that the member states are making in managing the backlog and the continuous attention on the decision-making capabilities of the countries." It said as a result, the number of pending cases has decreased, going from about one million at the end of 2016 to less than a half-million at the end of January 2018. An interactive EASO web page allows users to view data on asylum requests, decisions and pending cases in the EU+ at the link www.easo.europa.eu/latest-asylum-trends.
Georgian protection applications up 113% since September
Among the most significant data from January 2018, EASO said that Georgians have become the sixth most common citizenship among initial asylum requests. The figures show that Georgians have applied for asylum in growing numbers since a visa liberalisation accord for travel in the Schengen countries went into effect in March 2017. Reflecting on this increase, in January 2018 applications more than doubled (up 113%) compared to the number recorded four months earlier (from 874 applications in September 2017 to 1,859 in January 2018). Despite the increase in the number of applications, only 3% of Georgians obtained refugee status or subsidiary protection in 2017.