TIRANA, April 19 – More than 2,800 Albanians were granted protection by EU member states in 2017 with a recognition rate of 6 percent at first instance and appeals court, according to Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office.
First instance courts at EU member states granted protection to about 1,600 Albanians in 2017 while another 1,275 citizens were offered protection status under final decisions on appeal, taking the total number of beneficiaries to 2,875 out of a total of 45,325 applications examined by courts last year.
The number of Albanian granted protection in 2017 registered a slight increase compared to the previous three years when an average of 2,000 annually were granted asylum.
France provided the overwhelming majority of 1,685 decisions in favor of Albanians, followed by Germany with 280, Belgium with 135 and Italy with 110.
Among first instance decisions, Albania had a recognition rate of 5 percent, ranking 20th for the main citizenship of asylum applicants on a list dominated by war-torn Syria and Eritrea, but also including Turkey, Russia, Ukraine and Kosovo with higher recognition rates compared to Albania.
The number of first-time Albanian asylum seekers to EU member countries dropped by about a quarter to 22,000 in 2017, but Albanians continued remaining on the top 10 list of asylum applicants by country of citizenship for the third year in a row in a ranking dominated by war-torn Asian and African countries.
France emerged as the top destination for Albanian asylum seekers in 2017, overtaking Germany, the top destination of the overwhelming majority of Albanian asylum applicants in the previous three years.
More than 100,000 Albanians have sought asylum in EU member states since 2014, but only few thousands have obtained protection status.
Albania’s asylum exodus began in 2014, only to hit a record high of about 66,000 in 2015 when Germany placed Albania on the safe countries of origin and started applying fast-track processing of what was described as unfounded applications from EU candidate and NATO member Albania.
Obvious reasons for Albanian citizens leaving their home country include high unemployment, small income which in some cases is lower than the social benefits as asylum seekers in Germany, lack of trust in state institutions perceived as corrupt and inefficient, real or perceived lack of job perspectives and unrealistic expectations compared to income in Western European countries, primarily Germany, according to a study conducted Tirana-based Cooperation and Development Institute.
