Refugees

In July 2024, 74,695 citizens from outside the European Union made asylum claims for the first time in EU countries, according to Eurostat data released on Monday (21/10).

The number is down 7.5% compared to July 2023 (80,735).

Citizens from Syria, Afghanistan, and Venezuela remain the largest groups of asylum seekers in the EU.

The head of the UNHCR warned today that displacement crises in Lebanon and Sudan may worsen but stated that stricter border measures are not the solution, calling them ineffective and sometimes illegal.

EU countries on Thursday discussed "innovative" ways to increase deportations of irregular migrants and rejected asylum seekers, including controversial plans to set up dedicated return centers outside the bloc.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Wednesday called for new EU rules on handling irregular arrivals of asylum seekers and migrants to come into force in 2025, a year ahead of schedule.

His appeal comes as Spain is grappling with a surge in migrant arrivals in the Canary Islands and as Hungary and the Netherlands are seeking an opt-out from the bloc's rules on asylum.

Thousands of asylum seekers in Greece are facing a financial crisis, having not received their monthly assistance for over five months.

Europe's top human rights court has ruled that Cyprus violated the right of two Syrian nationals to seek asylum in the island nation after keeping them, and more than two dozen other people, aboard a boat at sea for two days before sending them back to Lebanon.

Austrian analyst and head of the European Stability Initiative Gerald Knaus stresses the need for Greece and other countries to pressure for changes in the European Union's refugee legislation.

Berlin's decision to impose temporary controls on Germany's land borders is eliciting strong reactions within Europe, putting the migration issue back on the EU's agenda just months after a historic agreement to resolve it.

The concern revolves around a possible "domino effect" with the introduction of similar measures in other member-states.

Hungary has implemented new restrictions on state-sponsored shelter for Ukrainian refugees, limiting accommodation only to those coming from war-affected areas as of August 21. This change leaves between two and three thousand Ukrainian refugees homeless, including vulnerable groups such as families with specific needs, pregnant women, the elderly, and households with many young children.

The United Nations refugee agency on Friday said government authorities in ethnically divided Cyprus have rounded up dozens of migrants and pushed them back inside a UN-controlled buffer zone that they crossed to seek asylum.