“Last year saw the highest number of asylum applications in the EU since 2016 – Austria is particularly affected”
Vienna (OTS) – “The latest record numbers of asylum applications show very clearly: we finally need effective measures to protect the EU’s external borders against illegal migration. This must finally include the possibility of rejections”, said today Harald Vilimsky, leader of the Liberal delegation in the European Parliament.
The backdrop is a confidential EU report on EU asylum data for 2022, which has yet to be officially published. Thus, there were around 924,000 requests for asylum in the EU. “It is a 47% increase over the previous year and the highest figure since 2016. The fact that they did not sound all the alarm bells in Brussels shows the complete failure of the Union in this matter”, said Vilimsky.
“Austria is particularly affected. With more than 108,000 asylum requests, this is an absolute record, which significantly surpasses the 88,000 requests in the crisis year of 2015. Compared to the previous year, we had almost three times more asylum seekers”, said the Liberal MEP. The neighboring country of Hungary, where only 46 asylum applications were made in 2022, shows us that things can be done completely differently,” says Vilimsky.
“Seven years after the so-called migration crisis, the EU’s borders are still completely open. Around 6.5 million asylum claims have been made in Europe since 2015. That’s almost the population of Bulgaria. Anyone arriving at the external border can still apply for asylum – regardless of how many safe third countries they have crossed by then. We know exactly that almost two thirds of applications are rejected because these people are not entitled to protection. This has to end finally,” Vilimsky said.
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