The report provides the following information:

- The number of asylum applicants in the EU-27 rose to more than 330.000 in 2012, which is an increase of around 30.000 compared to 2011.

- Belgium registered 28.105 asylum applicants during 2012  (8,5% of the total number of asylum applicants in the EU-27). Only Germany (77.540), France (60.560), Sweden (43.865) and UK (28.175) registered more asylum applicants than Belgium. Germany and Sweden recorded the highest increase of asylum applicants in 2012, more than 24.000 and 14.000 respectively compared to 2011.

- Sweden was the country with the highest number of asylum applications relative to the country population, followed by Malta, Luxemburg and Belgium. When taking the country population into account Belgium still registered significantly more asylum applications compared to the EU-27-average, but the difference is decreasing compared to previous years.

- Syrian asylum seekers tripled while Albanians and citizens from Bosnia-Herzegovina more than doubled in the EU-27 in 2012. Afghanistan remains the most important country of origin for asylum seekers in the EU-27, followed by Syria, Russia, Pakistan and Serbia.

- Almost one out of three asylum seekers in the EU-27 in 2012 was aged below 18 (accompanied and non-accompanied minors).  Two out of three asylum seekers in the EU-27 in 2012 were men,  but the gender differentiation shows great differences depending on the country of origin (figure 8 on page 7).

-  Table 6 on page 9 indicates which are the most popular countries of destination in the EU-27 for the thirty main citizenships of asylum seekers in the EU-27. This table demonstrates that about 70% of all asylum claims from Syria during the third quarter were registered in Germany or Sweden. For many countries of origin Belgium is amongst the five most popular countries of destination,in Europe.

- Figure 9 on page 13 compares the first instance decisions by outcome for the member states reporting the highest number of first instance decisions issued in 2012. Especially in Sweden the percentage of positive decisions was high.

- As illustrated by figure 10 and table 11, the outcome of the first instance decisions in the EU-27 shows large differences depending on the country of origin. For Syria about 90% of all decisions were positive (mostly subsidiary protection status), while for Pakistan 88% were negative decisions and for Serbia almost all decisisons had a negative outcoume.

The full report with tables and figures can be found above and can also be found on the Eurostat website.
 
Please note :
The Eurostat data refer to persons and not to files and all data are provisional. The data are rounded up to the nearest 5. The data are supplied by Member States according to the provisions of Article 4 of the Regulation (EC) 862/2007