12.015 people were granted asylum by Greece last year, according to the latest Eurostat data, which is the seventh highest in relation to the population, in the European Union.

The number per million people is 1.115.

The largest number of applications was approved by Germany (3.945 per million), followed by Austria (3.865) and Sweden (3.255).

Greece approved 43% of the first asylum applications it received. The applicants that were rejected had little chance when they appealed, as only 16% of the applicants for international protection were granted asylum.

#Asylum decisions in the EU: Recognition rates ranged from around 5% for citizens of Albania to 94% for Syria and 92% for Eritrea #Eurostat https://t.co/rv9AuJKF4c pic.twitter.com/P5iHcmIkZs

— EU_Eurostat (@EU_Eurostat) April 19, 2018

Almost half of the applications that were accepted (5.055) were submitted by Syrians. The rest are Iraqis (1.725), while 1.695 applications received were submitted by Afghans.

On the opposite side, Hungary gave protection status to just 130 people per million population, while even lower was the number for Poland and Slovakia, which accepted only 15 and 10 applications per million, respectively.

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The number of asylum claims across the European Union fell to 538.000, down 25% from 2016. One-third of the beneficiaries were Syrians.

In absolute terms, the largest number of protection status was given by Germany (325.000), France (40.600), Italy (35.100), Austria (34.000) and Sweden (31.200).