Asylum applications in Spain increased by 37.3% last year, the highest number ever recorded, with only Germany and France receiving more applications within the EU.
Spain received 163,220 asylum applications in 2023 and responded positively to 12% of cases, the lowest rate of the 27 countries of the European Union (EU), according to a report published this Monday.
Asylum applications to Spain increased by 37.3% last year, the highest figure ever recorded, and only Germany and France received more applications within the EU (351,510 and 166,880, respectively), the organization’s annual report reveals. governmental Spanish Commission for Refugee Assistance (CEAR). ).
Spain responded positively to 12% of asylum applications, a rate lower than that of 2022, “the lowest of all EU member states” and, above all, “increasingly further away” from the European average, which In 2023 it will stand at 42% and has maintained a growing trend in recent years, according to CEAR.
CEAR warned that, in parallel, the number of unanswered requests increased by 56% in 2023, when 191.95 people were waiting for “a decision on which their lives depend.”
This organization – which promotes the defense of Human Rights and has reception and support structures for refugees – highlighted that asylum applications increased by more than 37% in Spain last year, “despite the serious obstacles” to access. to the application procedure.
The “poor availability and unpredictability of the programming mechanisms to formalize new orders” led, in fact, “to feeding an irregular purchase and sale market at the expense of the state of need of many people,” CEAR denounced.
CEAR highlighted the arrival of 56,852 irregular immigrants by sea to Spain in 2023, an increase of 80% compared to 2022 and which was mainly due to the so-called Canary Islands route (vessels leaving the western coast of Africa).
According to CEAR figures, 70% of these arrivals by sea were registered in the Canary archipelago, highlighting the organization and recognizing that there was, in this case, a rapid response from the Spanish authorities, who activated “extraordinary measures” that prevented the repetition of “overcrowding situations” that occurred in the past.
Always in relation to the Canary Islands, CEAR highlighted the increase in unaccompanied minors arriving in the archipelago, which, on January 26 of this year, welcomed 5,063 people under 18 years of age (the previous year there were 2,181).
By nationality, the largest number of asylum applications to Spain come from people from three Latin American countries: Venezuela, Colombia and Peru.
The CEAR report draws attention to the case of Colombia, the country of origin of 53,564 asylum applications to Spain in 2023, with only 724 positive responses for the attribution of refugee status and 12 for subsidiary international protection, “despite the serious threats that activists face. and community leaders” in the country.
The general director of CEAR, Mauricio Valiente, said this Monday, at a press conference, that in Colombia there are serious violations of Human Rights, in addition to being the country in the world with the most internally displaced people, so “it is not understood that, Faced with this reality, the number of protections is so small [internacionais] that are granted in Spain.”
The CEAR report also refers to the European Pact on Migration and Asylum, considering that it “strengthens border control and focuses on preventing people from arriving, expelling them as quickly as possible and without investing enough in legal and safe channels.”
Source: Observadora
