The 27 EU Member States for which data are available granted protection status to 185,000 asylum seekers in 2014, up by almost 50% compared with 2013. Since 2008, more than 750,000 asylum seekers have been granted protection status in the EU.

More than 1 out of 3 persons granted protection status in the EU was Syrian The largest group of beneficiaries of protection status in the EU in 2014 remained citizens of Syria (68,400 persons or 37% of the total number of persons granted protection status in the 27 EU Member States for which data are available), followed at a distance by citizens of Eritrea (14,600 or 8%) and those of Afghanistan (14,100 or 8%). Together, these three citizenships accounted for more than half of all persons granted protection status in the EU in 2014.

Beneficiaries of asylum protection in the EU, by citizenship in 2014:

Syria 37%

Eritrea 8%

Afghanistan 8%

Iraq 5%

Stateless 4%

Iran 4%

Somalia 3%

Pakistan 3%

Russia 2%

Other 26%

Syrians, whose number has almost doubled compared with 2013 and quadrupled since 2012, represented in 2014 the largest group granted protection status in nearly half of the Member States. Of the 68,400 Syrians granted protection status in the EU, more than 60% were recorded in two Member States: Germany (25,700) and Sweden (16,800). Of the 14,600 Eritreans granted protection, more than three-quarters were registered in three EU Member States: Sweden (5,300), the Netherlands (3,600) and the United Kingdom (2,300). Of the 14,100 Afghans, 5,000 were granted protection status in Germany and 2,400 in Italy.

In 2014, almost 360,000 first instance decisions on asylum applications were made in the 27 EU Member States for which data are available and 135,000 final decisions on appeal. Decisions made at the first instance resulted in more than 160,000 persons being granted protection status, while a further 24,000 received protection status on appeal. The rate of recognition of asylum applicants, i.e. the share of positive decisions in the total number of decisions, was 45% for first instance decisions. For final decisions on appeal, the recognition rate was 18%.

In the Member States, more than three-quarters of first instance decisions resulted in positive outcome for asylum applicants in Bulgaria (94%), Sweden (77%) and Cyprus (76%), and for final decisions on appeal in Bulgaria (86%), Italy (84%) and Finland (79%).