TIRANA, Dec. 17 – During September alone, 1,770 new asylum applications from Albanian citizens were lodged in the European Union, or about 14 percent more than the number of applications in October. Eurostat recently published new data on the last quarter, with about 5,120 requests recorded during the July – September period.
Furthermore, during the January-September their number increased by 21 percent compared to the previous year. Some 15,469 asylum applications were lodged for the first time during the nine-month period while during the same period a year ago, the number of new applications was 12,835. During September, the country which received the highest number of first-time applications from Albania was France, with 570 new applications.
Additionally, the United Kingdom is becoming a preferred destination for Albanian asylum seekers yet again, as it was ranked second in the EU with the highest number of lodged applications by Albanians. Therefore, 356 asylum seekers were registered in the United Kingdom in September.
France and the United Kingdom accounted for half of the first-time applications from Albanians in September, followed by Greece with 215 applications or 12 percent of the total and Ireland with 191 applications or 10 percent of the total. Moreover,130 Albanians applied in Germany in September, while preliminary data from Eurostat indicate that the same number of applications were lodged in October. On the other hand, in November, another 145 Albanians applied for asylum in the country.
In other European Union countries, a total of 290 applications were lodged during September, mainly in Italy, Sweden and Belgium. During September alone the number of rejections by the authorities was 1321, with only 57 requests being granted refugee status. This indicates the low acceptance rate towards Albanian applications; Georgian and Albanian applicants faced the lowest acceptance rate (3 percent and 6 percent respectively) among the top 10 countries of origin, according to the quarterly report.
