Fewer petitions to EU, more to US

PARIS: GERMANY, WHICH HAS BEEN THE TOP DESTINATION FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS IN THE RICH NATIONS’ CLUB SINCE 2013, SAW A 73% DROP IN APPLICATIONS IN 2017 TO 198,000.

The number of people fleeing war or strife for more stable parts of the world declined significantly in 2017, although the United States registered a sharp increase in asylum applications during US. President Donald Trump’s first year in the White House.

In a report on broader migration trends, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said the biggest exodus came for a thirdyear running from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq.

Asylum applications to OECD countries fell 25% in 2017 from the record-high of 1.64 million a year earlier, the report said. Applications to EU member states nearly halved.

The drop was largely due “to the large decline in applications in Germany after the very high figure recorded in 2016, which partly reflected delayed registrations from 2015,” the report said.

Chancellor Angela Merkel that year opened Germany’s borders to hundreds of thousands of migrants, mostly Middle Eastern asylum seekers — a decision for which she is still paying a political price at home.

Germany emerged as the second largest destination of asylum applicants after the United States in the OECD last year, registering 198,000 applications, down 73 percent on 2016. Italy, which has a new anti-establishment government in power, Turkey and France followed.

While requests for refugee status fell in the EU, they jumped 26 percent to 330,000 in the United States.

Two in every five of those were filed by nationals of El Salvador, Guatemala and Venezuela, where hyper-inflation, widespread hunger and political strife have driven an exodus abroad.