More than 30 thousand Albanians seeked asylum in the EU last year.
Albania is among the top 10 countries of origin for asylum applicants globally, the only European country to appear on the list alongside countries like Syria, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Colombia, Iran, Pakistan, Nigeria, Iran, and Turkey, all of them either ruled by autocrats, or sites of violent conflict.
On February 26, the European Asylum Support Office published an overview of asylum trends in the EU, Switzerland, and Norway, for 2019.
According to the EASO data, 30,020 Albanians applied for asylum in the EU, Switzerland, and Norway during 2019. Of those, 27,294 were first-time applicants, whereas 2726 are repeat applicants.
Only 542 Albanians received refugee status in the last year, 659 received subsidiary protection, whereas 17,383 received negative decisions.
At the end of 2019, 12,997 Albanians were awaiting a decision on their asylum application, with 6629 of them having been waiting for more than 6 months.
Globally, EASO found that asylum applications increased by 13% since 2018. A fourth of the applicants came from countries within the Schengen Area. While about a third of asylum applications are approved, applicants from countries within the Schengen Area have very low approval rates.
