Disclaimer
Figures used in this Report relate to annual datasets published on the Eurostat website on 13 May 2019 (for applicants for international protection, withdrawn applications, asylum decisions in first instance, asylum decisions in second and higher instance, pending cases and unaccompanied minors), and collected in the framework of Regulation (EC) 862/2007, unless otherwise stated.
The data used for this publication are provided to Eurostat by the Ministries of Interior, Justice or immigration agencies of the Member States. Data are entirely based on relevant administrative sources. Apart from statistics on first-time asylum applicants, these data are supplied by Member States according to the provisions of Article 4 of Regulation (EC) 862/2007 of 11 July 2007 on Community statistics on migration and international protection.
The indicators on asylum applicants, first-time asylum applicants, pending cases and withdrawn applications are collected by Eurostat on a monthly basis. Similarly, indicators of first instance decisions - refugee status granted, subsidiary protection status granted, authorisation to stay for humanitarian reasons granted, and rejections - are submitted to Eurostat on a quarterly basis.
It is important to note that the Eurostat Technical Guidelines for data collection were amended in December 2013 and subsequently entered into force in the reference month of January 2014. The change affects the backward comparability of 2014 data. The main changes in the Eurostat Technical Guidelines for the data collection that affect the above comparison are:
- clarification of the first-time and repeated applicant concepts;
- addition of an instruction on how persons subject to a Dublin procedure should be counted in the pending cases table;
- instruction not to report cases where another Member State assumed responsibility of negative asylum decisions;
- clarification of the concept of humanitarian protection.
The amendment to Eurostat Technical Guidelines was also published in December 2014. The methodological changes introduced entered into force as of January 2015 and regarded reporting on Dublin cases and withdrawn cases, as explained below.
- Persons subject to Dublin procedure shall be removed from the stock of pending applications of the sending country from the time of the acceptance decision.
- Persons subject to Dublin procedure shall be included in the stock of pending applications of the receiving country from the moment of physical arrival and when such persons apply or re-apply for asylum.
- Dublin transfers shall not be considered as implicit or explicit withdrawal.
- Persons subject to Dublin procedure and absconding after the acceptance decision shall not be reported in withdrawn applications data.
- Revisions at the own initiative of the national asylum authority shall be considered as regular revisions (i.e. require revision of the previously reported data).
- Persons reappearing after explicit or explicit withdrawal of application shall be considered as regular revisions and shall be removed from withdrawn applications data.
The most recent modifications in the Eurostat Technical Guidelines for data collection were published in February 2018 793 and introduced:
- a new voluntary data disaggregation on the 'Status of Minor' from 2018 reference periods onwards. The new concept will measure whether a minor applicant was 'Unaccompanied' or 'Accompanied' by an adult responsible for him during the application procedure;
- an amendment and new specification of 'Resettlement Framework' variable: the former category ‘Agreement in Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council on 20.07.2015 – JHAC15’ now becomes ‘EU Resettlement Frameworks – EU_RFW’ to cover the Resettlement Frameworks launched by the Commission (or Justice and Home Affairs Council) applicable to each reference year;
- methodological guidance on the reporting of the new variables of table A16 (Resettled person), namely 'Country of Residence', 'Decision' and 'Resettlement Framework'. These guidelines were agreed in the Asylum and Managed Migration WG of 2016.
For the aforementioned indicators, the annual figures presented in the following annexes are computed as the aggregation of data submitted to Eurostat throughout the year on a monthly (or quarterly) basis.
The figures presented in this publication are provisional and may be subject to update or revision from the Member States.
Data available on the Eurostat website are rounded to the nearest five. As such, aggregates calculated on the basis of rounded figures may slightly deviate from the actual total.
Please be advised that a ‘0’ may not necessarily indicate a real zero value but could also represent a value of ‘1’ or ‘2’.
Annexes
(click on annexes below to open the files)
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793 Eurostat, Technical Guidelines for the Data Collection under Art. 4.1-4.3 of Regulation 862/2007 – Statistics on Asylum. Version 4.0 amended in February 2018, February 2018, retrieved at https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/metadata/Annexes/migr_asydec_esms_an7.pdf
