4.2.4. Decisions on outgoing Dublin requests

Decisions on outgoing Dublin requests include decisions in response to take back requests (under Articles 18(1b-d) and 20(5) of the Dublin III Regulation) and take charge requests (under
Articles 8-16 and 17(2)), while they exclude decisions taken under the sovereignty clause 
(Article 17(1)). Thus, the data on outgoing Dublin requests cover all persons included in a decision received by the reporting country in response to a request to have a partner country take responsibility for the asylum application. This does not mean that the transfer was necessarily carried out, but it does mean that the partner Member State replied to the request, whether it was accepted or rejected, within the time limit or there was an implicit acceptance due to the expiration of the time limit.

In 2021,114,300 decisions were issued in response to outgoing Dublin requests,^xiii according to provisional data which are regularly exchanged between the EUAA and 29 EU+ countries.^xiv This represented an increase by one-fifth compared to 2020, yet the annual total remained below pre-pandemic levels. However, the upward trend in the number of decisions issued started in August 2021, and by the last quarter of 2021, decisions on Dublin requests returned to pre-COVID levels. The increase in decisions was in accordance with more asylum applications being lodged in EU+ countries around the same period. 

Overall, the annual ratio of decisions received on Dublin requests to asylum applications lodged was 18%, on par with 2020. Although some decisions on Dublin requests concerned family reunion cases, the stable ratio of decisions to applications suggests that in 2021 a number of asylum seekers moved from the first country of arrival to another to lodge a new application (referred to as secondary movements), impacting asylum caseloads overall.

At the country level, Germany and France continued to receive the most decisions in response to their requests (see the left side of Figure 4.10), jointly accounting for over three-fifths of the EU+ total. Germany received almost one-third more responses than in 2020, whereas responses received by France increased by about one-sixth. Most countries received more responses in 2021, with the most notable relative increases in Romania, Slovakia, Croatia, Poland, Austria, Czechia, Belgium and Portugal (in descending order).^xv In contrast, some countries received fewer responses, namely Greece, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Malta and Norway (in descending order). 

Figure 4.10. Decisions on Dublin requests by selected countries receiving a decision (left) and responding to a request (right), 2021

As in previous years, Italy issued the most decisions overall on Dublin requests, followed by Germany and Greece (see the right side of Figure 4.10). While Italy issued more decisions than in 2020, the number was stable in Germany and rose by one-half in Greece, to the most decisions the country has issued in several years. Romania emerged as the fourth country, with over three times as many decisions as in 2020, followed by France. Austria issued nearly twice as many decisions on Dublin requests than in the previous year and Bulgaria, nearly four times as many. In contrast, fewer decisions were issued by Portugal, Sweden, Spain and Hungary (in descending order).