Frontex, the European border and coastguard agency, collects data on detections by national border-control authorities of illegal crossings of the EU’s external borders. External borders are those between Member States and third countries, as well as between Schengen Associated Countries (Norway, Iceland and Switzerland) and third countries.

Detections of illegal border crossings in the EU (2019)

141 741Detections of illegal border crossings in the EU in 2019 (149 036 in 2018) Migratory routes

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Western Balkans

Monthly average(in 1 000)

4

64

111 0.5 1

Central Mediterranean

Monthly average(in 1 000) 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

14 13 15 10 2 1

Western Mediterranean

Monthly average(in 1 000)

1 1 1 2 5 22014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Eastern Mediterranean

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 20194

74

154 5 7Monthly average

(in 1 000)

All routes 6-monthly data (in 1 000)

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

91 192 229

1 594

360151 114 91 62 87 44 98

9,9%

141 741

EasternMediterranean

WesternMediterranean

WesternBalkans

CentralMediterranean

Western African: 1,9 %

Circular Route: 1,4 % Other: 0,5 %

58,8%

16,9%

10,7%

EasternMediterranean 83 333

WesternBalkans 15 127

CentralMediterranean 14 003

WesternMediterranean 23 969

WesternAfrica 2 718WesternAfrica 2 7182 712 7182

Casablanca

Dakar

Accra

Agadez

Sebha

LampedusaTripoli

AlgiersOran

OujdaOuargla

Cairo

Addis Ababa

Nairobi

Alexandria

Lagos

Top 15 migrant nationalities (2019) (in 1 000)

Tunisia

Cameroon Bangladesh

Albania

Afghanistan, 34

Others, 29

Syria, 24

Morocco, 8

Turkey, 8

Iraq6

Pakistan 4

Algeria5

Congo 8

Tunisia, 3Cameroon, 2

Palestine 4

Bangladesh

2

Iran3

Somalia3

Albania2

The map shows the different routes and the number of illegal entries into the EU in 2019 for each route. The line chart shows the number of illegal crossings at six-monthly intervals, and the pie chart the share that each route represents in the total. The four boxes below denote the monthly average number of illegal border crossings for each route. The table shows the top 15 nationalities of migrants.

Recent migration flows to the EU

EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service

Author: Giulio Sabbati Graphics: Samy Chahri, Lucille Killmayer Members' Research Service

PE 649.329 - April 2020

BRIEFINGInfographic

Missing migrants along the Mediterranean migratory routesThe International Organization for Migration (IOM) carries out the Missing Migrants project, aimed at compiling data on migrants who have died or gone missing, either at the external borders or in the migration process. It excludes, for instance, deaths in refugee camps or during return to a migrant’s homeland, or as a result of labour exploitation. Various sources of data are used such as relevant national authorities, IOM field missions, direct reporting by IOM and other organisations receiving survivors, and media reports. IOM and UNHCR make sure that data are consistent.

The map shows the number of deaths on the Mediterranean routes for the period 2015 to 2019. The bar chart below on the left compares the number of deaths for the last six years. The line chart shows the evolution of the phenomenon by six-monthly periods.The three boxes on the right represent the monthly average number of migrant deaths on the three Mediterranean routes in the last six years, as well as an estimated gender breakdown.It can be seen, for instance, that in 2015, despite the increase in migrant flows in the Eastern Mediterranean (see previous page), the Central Mediterranean remained the more deadly route, with nearly two deaths for every 100 travellers.

Eastern Mediterranean

567 36 5Monthly average

Gender

FM15 62014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Central Mediterranean264 262

382238

Monthly average

Gender

FM

110 105

2014 2015 2016 20175 9 11 19

Western Mediterranean

Monthly average

Gender

FM

2018 2019

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

68 46

6-monthly data (in 1 000)

2014 2015 2016 2017

0.7 2.5 1.8 1.9 2.9 2.1 2.3 0.9 1.3 1.0 0.6 1.3

2018 2019

201920182017201620152014

3 2834 054

5 143

3 1392 299

1 885

1 262Central Mediterranean (2019)

71Eastern Mediterranean (2019)

552Western Mediterranean (2019)

1 885Deaths of migrants recorded in the Mediterranean in 2019

Notes. Data on fatalities are challenging to collect because reporting on deaths is poor, countless bodies are never found and the involvement of criminal actors means there may be fear among survivors to report deaths, and some deaths may be actively covered up. For instance, in 2015, over 50 % of deaths recorded by the Missing Migrants Project refer to migrants who are presumed dead and whose bodies have not been found (mainly at sea). The sex of the deceased is unrecorded in over 80 % of cases.

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EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service

Asylum applicants in the EU-27The bar chart shows the number of asylum applicants in the European Union. ‘Applicants’ refers to anyone applying for asylum or similar protection – as defined in the Qualification Directive – or included in an application as a family member. The table shows the breakdown of those Member States which together represent more than 90 % of the total requests for asylum in 2019.

The map shows the relative weight of the number of applicants per million inhabitants in the ‘country of arrival’ (the EU Member State in which asylum has been requested) for the year 2019. The EU average is 1 513 applicants per million inhabitants. The bar below the map shows the range of applicants within the Member States. The horizontal bar chart shows the top 20 countries of origin for the year 2019. The value in parenthesis represents changes with respect to 2018; a positive value shows an increase, negative a decrease (e.g. there was a decrease of 6 000 applicants from Syria in 2019 compared to the year 2018).

In 1 000 applicants

Top 20 countries of origin

(-6)(13)(23)(22)

(-10)(1)(2)(0)(2)

(-1)(-2)(1)(2)

(-1)(-1)(-3)(1)(2)

(-0.1)(-0.5)

SyriaAfghanistan

VenezuelaColombia

IraqPakistan

TurkeyNigeria

GeorgiaAlbania

IranBangladesh

SomaliaRussia

GuineaEritrea

MoroccoDemocratic Republic of the Congo

AlgeriaUkraine

7757

4532

3127

2424

221919

15141413

101010109

Asylum applicants per million inhabitant(2015)

0 2000 4000 6000 8000 100000

5000

10000

15000

20000

More than 3 500

1 900 - 3 500

700 - 1 899

150 - 699

Less than 150

Applicants per million inhabitants

15 584423 5001 900700150

Notes. Asylum is a form of international protection given by a state on its territory to someone who is threatened by persecution on grounds of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular group or political opinion in their country of origin or residence. In the EU, this consists of refugee status as defined in the UN Geneva Refugee Convention, plus subsidiary protection for persons who do not qualify as refugees but in respect of whom substantial grounds exist that the person concerned, if returned to their country of origin, would face a real risk of suffering serious harm as defined in the Qualification Directive.Not all those who cross the EU’s external borders illegally will seek asylum, or indeed qualify under the definition above. They thus form part of the broader category of ‘irregular immigrants’, i.e. those who do not fulfil, or no longer fulfil, the conditions of entry as set out in Article 5 of the Schengen Borders Code or other conditions for entry, stay or residence in that Member State.

Country code (ordered by number of asylum applicants in 2019): Germany (DE), France (FR), Spain (ES), Greece (EL), Italy (IT), Belgium (BE), Sweden (SE), Netherlands (NL), Cyprus (CY). Others: Austria (AT), Ireland (IE), Finland (FI), Malta (MT), Poland (PL), Slovenia (SI), Den-mark (DK), Romania (RO), Luxembourg (LU), Bulgaria (BG), Czechia (CZ), Portugal (PT), Croatia (HR), Lithuania (LT), Hungary (HU), Slovakia (SK), Latvia (LV), Estonia (EE)

2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

DE 127 203 477 745 223 184 166FR 66 64 76 84 99 120 129ES 4 6 15 16 37 54 118EL 8 9 13 51 59 67 77IT 27 65 84 123 129 60 44BE 21 23 45 18 18 23 27SE 54 81 162 29 26 22 26NL 13 24 45 21 18 24 25CY 1 2 2 3 5 8 14Others 79 117 364 131 64 47 50

In 1 000 applicants

In 1 000 applicants

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 20192008 2009 2010

225 232 235 282 306401

594677 676

608

1283128312211221

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EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service

First instance decisions (in Eurostat data) refer to decisions taken by administrative or judicial bodies in Member States on refugee status and subsidiary protection, as well as authorisations to stay for humanitarian reasons. First instance decisions also include decisions granted to persons who are subject to the Dublin Regulation.The number of asylum applicants and the number of first instance decisions during a given year differs. This is due to the time elapsed between a request being submitted and the decision. This time varies considerably, depending on national asylum procedures and the administrative workload of Member States.The first graph shows the aggregate of positive decisions for the EU-27. The bar represents the positive decisions in thousands while the circles give the percentage that positive decisions represent in total decisions. The second graph presents the distribution between positive and negative decisions by Member State for the year 2019.

First instance decisions on asylum in the EU-27

Positive first instance decisions on asylum in the EU-27

First instance decisions on asylum by Member State (2019)

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100% Negative decision

Positive decision

CZPLFRUK

HUHR

DKESBGITELSE

EU-2

8FINL

DE

CYBEPTATROEESILUSKMTLVLTIE

Negative decision

Positive decision

HUCZPLHRITLVPTFRLTSEBGFINLBEEU27SKMTSICYRODEEEDKIEELATLUES

89%

77%

74%

69%

67%

66%

63%

61%

60%

53%

52%

52%

51%

50%

49%

48%

46%

44

%4

3% 41%

36%

35%

34%

32%

31%

31%

29%

25%

12%

66%

57%

53%

53%

52%

52%

50%

46% 44

%4

0%

40

%39

%39

%38

%38

%37

%34

%32

%29

%28

%25

%23

%23

%20

%17

%13

%10

%8%

11%

23%

26%

31%

33%

34%

38%

39%

40

%4

7%4

8%4

8%4

9%50

%51

%52

%54

%56

%57

%59

%64

%65

%66

%68

%69

%69

%71

%75

%88

%

34%

43%

47% 47%

48%

48%

50%

54%

56%

60%

60%

61%

61%

62%

62%

63%

66%

68%

71%

72%

75%

77%

77%

80%

83%

87%

90%

92%

Negative decisionsPositive

HUCZPLHRITLVPTFRLTSEBGFINLBE

EU-2

7SKMTSICYRODEEEDKIEELATLUES

Positive decisions (left axis, in 1 000)Positive decisions as % of total decisions(right axis)

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

0

200

400

600

800

201920182017201620152014201320122011

24.7%

31.9%33.9%

46.1%

52.6%

61.6%

45.9%

37.5% 38.1%443

5283 99

157

294

663

429

207 206

Positive decisions

Negative decisions

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100% Negative decision

Positive decision

CZPLFRUK

HUHR

DKESBGITELSE

EU-2

8FINL

DE

CYBEPTATROEESILUSKMTLVLTIE

Negative decision

Positive decision

HUCZPLHRITLVPTFRLTSEBGFINLBEEU27SKMTSICYRODEEEDKIEELATLUES

89%

77%

74%

69%

67%

66%

63%

61%

60%

53%

52%

52%

51%

50%

49%

48%

46%

44

%4

3% 41%

36%

35%

34%

32%

31%

31%

29%

25%

12%

66%

57%

53%

53%

52%

52%

50%

46% 44

%4

0%

40

%39

%39

%38

%38

%37

%34

%32

%29

%28

%25

%23

%23

%20

%17

%13

%10

%8%

11%

23%

26%

31%

33%

34%

38%

39%

40

%4

7%4

8%4

8%4

9%50

%51

%52

%54

%56

%57

%59

%64

%65

%66

%68

%69

%69

%71

%75

%88

%

34%

43%

47% 47%

48%

48%

50%

54%

56%

60%

60%

61%

61%

62%

62%

63%

66%

68%

71%

72%

75%

77%

77%

80%

83%

87%

90%

92%

Negative decisionsPositive

HUCZPLHRITLVPTFRLTSEBGFINLBE

EU-2

7SKMTSICYRODEEEDKIEELATLUES

Positive decisions (left axis, in 1 000)Positive decisions as % of total decisions(right axis)

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

0

200

400

600

800

201920182017201620152014201320122011

24.7%

31.9%33.9%

46.1%

52.6%

61.6%

45.9%

37.5% 38.1%443

5283 99

157

294

663

429

207 206

Positive decisions

Negative decisions

Data source: Frontex, International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Eurostat (migr_asyappctza and migr_asydcfsta)Extraction date: data were extracted in March 2020.This Infographic updates and complements previous editions issued in September 2015 (PE 565.905), in April 2016 (PE 580.893), in February 2017 (PE 595.918), in December 2017 (PE 614.604) and in May 2018 (PE 621.862).

DISCLAIMER AND COPYRIGHT This document is prepared for, and addressed to, the Members and staff of the European Parliament as background material to assist them in their parliamentary work. The content of the document is the sole responsibility of its author(s) and any opinions expressed herein should not be taken to represent an official position of the Parliament. Reproduction and translation for non-commercial purposes are authorised, provided the source is acknowledged and the European Parliament is given prior notice and sent a copy.© European Union, 2020.

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