Malta granted protection to 435 asylum seekers in 2019

Malta granted protection to a total of 435 asylum seekers throughout 2019, figures published by Eurostat show.

Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics body, revealed that the EU had granted protection to 295,800 asylum seekers in 2019 – 6% less than in 2018.

On its part, Malta granted protection to 435 asylum seekers – which equates to 880 people granted protection per million of population, the seventh highest in the EU.

Greece had the highest comparative figure across the EU, granting protection to 1,735 asylum seekers per million population. Austria (1,550 per million population), Cyprus (1,500 per million population), Germany (1,400 per million population), Sweden (1,150 per million population), Luxembourg (1,090 per million population) followed.

In terms of sheer numbers, three quarters of all positive decisions on asylum were taken in four member states. In 2019, the highest number of persons granted protection status was registered in Germany (116,200 or 39% of all positive decisions), ahead of France (42,100 or 14%), Spain (38,500 or 13%) and Italy (31,000 or 10%).

In Malta’s case, two-thirds of those granted asylum – 285 people - were Syrian, while a further 17% - 75 people – were Libyan. A further 6% of those, equating to 25 people, hail from Eritrea.

From the 435 granted protection in Malta, 360 were granted subsidiary protection – which is defined as being protection for a third-country national who does not qualify as a refugee but for whom there is substantial grounds to show that if returned to his or her country of citizenship they would face a real risk of suffering serious harm.

A further 55 were granted refugee status, while the remaining 15 were granted asylum status on humanitarian grounds.

At an EU-wide level, the total number of asylum seekers granted protection in the EU in 2019 comprised of 141,100 grants of refugee status (48% of all positive decisions), 82,100 grants of subsidiary protection (28%) and 72,700 grants of humanitarian protection (25%).

The largest group of beneficiaries of protection status in the EU in 2019 remained Syrians (78,600 or 27% of the total number of persons granted protection status in the EU), followed by Afghans (40,000 or 14%) and Venezuelans (37,500 or 13%). The number of Venezuelans rose by nearly 40 times in 2019 compared with 2018, when almost 1 000 Venezuelans were granted protection status in the EU.

Among the Syrians granted protection status in the EU, 71% were recorded in Germany (56,100). For the Afghans the highest share - 41% - was also recorded in Germany (16,200). Nearly all grants of protection status to Venezuelans were recorded in Spain (35,300), 94% of the EU total.