The 28 Member States of the European Union (EU) granted protection status to 710 400 asylum seekers in 2016, more than double the number of 2015. In addition to these, the EU Member States received over 14 000 resettled refugees, according to Εurostat.
The largest group of beneficiaries of protection status in the EU in 2016 were citizens of Syria (405 600 persons, or 57% of the total number of persons granted protection status in the EU Member States), followed by citizens of Iraq (65 800 or 9%) and those of Afghanistan (61 800 or 9%).
Cyprus granted asylum to 1 155 individuals from Syria (81%), 100 from Palestine (7%) and 80 from Iraq (6%).
The number of decisions granting protection status to Syrians has more than doubled since 2015: they were the largest group granted protection status in nineteen Member States in 2016. Of the 405 600 Syrians granted protection status in the EU, more than 70% were recorded in Germany (294 700).
Cyprus took 1 420 positive decisions on asylum seekers in 2016 or 1 675 decision per million of inhabitants of which 230 received refugee status and 1 190 subsidiary protection.
In 2016, the highest number of persons granted protection status was registered in Germany (445 210, or triple compared with 2015), followed by Sweden (69 350, or double the number of 2015), Italy (35 450, or +20%), France (35 170, or +35%), Austria (31 750, or +79%) and the Netherlands (21 825, or +28%).
Out of all the persons who were granted protection status in 2016 in the EU, 389 670 persons were granted refugee status (55% of all positive decisions), 263 755 subsidiary protection (37%) and 56 970 authorization to stay for humanitarian reasons (8%). It should be noted that, while both refugee and subsidiary protection status are defined by EU law, humanitarian status is granted on the basis of national legislation.
Out of all applications processed in Cyprus (1 975 ), 1 300 or 66% were positive on first instance and 250 were brought on appeal of which 120 or 49% were positive.