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Asylum decisions in the EU: EU Member States granted protection to more than 700 000 asylum seekers in 2016
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Download document Over half of the beneficiaries were Syrians
The 28 Member States of the European Union (EU) granted protection status to 710 400 asylum seekers in 2016, more than double the number of 2015. In addition to these, the EU Member States received over 14 000 resettled refugees.
The largest group of beneficiaries of protection status in the EU in 2016 remained citizens of Syria (405 600 persons, or 57% of the total number of persons granted protection status in the EU Member States), followed by citizens of Iraq (65 800 or 9%) and those of Afghanistan (61 800 or 9%).
The number of decisions granting protection status to Syrians has more than doubled since 2015: they were the largest group granted protection status in nineteen Member States in 2016. Of the 405 600 Syrians granted protection status in the EU, more than 70% were recorded in Germany (294 700).
These data on the results of asylum decisions in the EU are released by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.
More than 60% of positive decisions granted in one single Member State: Germany
In 2016, the highest number of persons granted protection status was registered in Germany (445 210, or triple compared with 2015), followed by Sweden (69 350, or double the number of 2015), Italy (35 450, or +20%), France (35 170, or +35%), Austria (31 750, or +79%) and the Netherlands (21 825, or +28%).
Out of all the persons who were granted protection status in 2016 in the EU, 389 670 persons were granted refugee status (55% of all positive decisions), 263 755 subsidiary protection (37%) and 56 970 authorisation to stay for humanitarian reasons (8%). It should be noted that, while both refugee and subsidiary protection status are defined by EU law, humanitarian status is granted on the basis of national legislation.