4.4.4. Withdrawn applications
An asylum application can be withdrawn for various reasons before a final decision has been issued. For reporting purposes, withdrawn applications can be measured based on two indicators:

- 'explicit’ withdrawals refer to cases where the applicant no longer needs international protection and notifies the authorities to withdraw the application; and
- ’implicit’ withdrawals concern cases where the authorities fail to locate the applicant and therefore it is considered that the applicant has abandoned the procedure. Data on implicit withdrawals may cover cases prior to the reference year since an applicant may have absconded long before the withdrawal was noted and reported.
Figure 4.18. EU+ countries with the most withdrawals in 2021, nationality of applicants who accounted for at least 50% of all withdrawals in these countries and change compared to 2020

While at a smaller scale, citizens of Iraq withdrew a record number of applications in Latvia, after entering through Belarus.544 The profile of nationalities differed in other EU+ countries. For example, withdrawals were mainly done by Indians, Pakistanis and Vietnamese in Cyprus, Moroccans and Algerians in the Netherlands, and Sudanese, Eritreans and Libyans in Malta (in descending order) (see Figure 4.18).
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Footnotes
xxxvi Data on the type of withdrawal (implicit or implicit) are available through the EUAA EPS data exchange. Based on that data, around three-quarters of all withdrawals were implicit. However, a direct comparison of EUAA and Eurostat data is not possible. The EUAA indicator refers to applications withdrawn during the first instance determination process related to first instance decision-making, while Eurostat data cover applications withdrawn at all instances of the administrative or judicial procedure. In addition, the reporting dates differ: the EUAA uses the date of the decision on the withdrawn application, while Eurostat uses the date the application is considered withdrawn. Finally, the EPS data collection does not cover Iceland or Liechtenstein
xxvii Eurostat data did not cover Belgium and Italy, so EUAA EPS data were used for the total calculation. Information on the type of withdrawal was not available for Romania.
xxxviii Analysis was restricted to EU+ countries with a minimum of 100 reported withdrawals in 2021.
xxxix Analysis was restricted to EU+ countries with a minimum of 1,500 reported withdrawals in 2021.
- 544Ministry of the Interior | Lekšlietu Ministrija. (2021, August 11). Government Declares State of Emergency on the Latvia-Belarus Border. https://www.iem.gov.lv/en/article/government-declares-state-emergency-latvia-belarus-border