Number of Albanian asylum seekers to Germany drops by 71%
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TIRANA, Oct. 12 - The number of Albanian asylum seekers in Germany registered a sharp 71 percent decline in the first three quarters of this year when 12,800 Albanians filed applications with German authorities, according to a report by Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, BAMF.
The 2016 figures are still alarming and rank Albania as the eighth top country of origin for asylum seekers in a list dominated by war-torn Middle East countries.
The sharp decline in Albanian asylum seekers comes at a time when German authorities have made it clear chances asylum will be granted to Albanian citizens are exceptionally low after the country was designated as a safe country of origin by German authorities in late 2015 following a wave of migrants as rumors spread that the country needed workers.
The number of new Albanian asylum seekers for this year peaked in September 2016 with 2,250 applications, a 38 percent increase compared to last August.
German authorities say protection orders issued for Albanian asylum seekers have been at a negligible 0.4 percent out of 31,500 decisions on Albanian applications.
More than 65,000 Albanians applied for asylum in EU countries last year accounting for 5 percent of asylum claims filed last year, according to Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.
Germany was the most attractive destination for Albanian asylum seekers with 53,805 asylum claims registered, or 12 percent of all asylum seekers in Germany, the second highest number after Syria. France and Sweden received the second and third highest number of applications from Albanian nationals with 3,220 and 2,565 pending applications respectively in 2015.
However, only 2.6 percent of Albanian asylum-seekers in EU member countries were granted asylum in 2015, according to a Eurostat report. The figures unveil how difficult it will be to obtain asylum status for thousands of Albanians who left the country last year, mainly to Germany, in search of better life.
Eurostat reports that of the 38,400 first instance decisions issued to Albanians from April to December 2015, only about 740 were positive.
Large-scale involuntary migration, i.e. asylum-seeking, emerged as a top concern for doing business in Albania in 2015 with a negative impact on the small ailing economy of 2.8 million residents, according to a survey published in the latest Global Risks Report by the World Economic Forum. Migration was the top concern for 78 percent of respondents about doing business in Albania for the next ten years, the survey showed.
