Malta has third highest asylum application rate

Malta had the third highest number of asylum applications per capita in 2004, after Cyprus and Luxembourg, the UN High Commission for Refugees revealed in a report published yesterday.

The report said Malta was among the countries "struggling to cope" after it reported its highest number of asylum seekers on record last year.

The number of people seeking asylum in general dropped sharply for the third year in a row in 2004, hitting the lowest levels in 16 years, according to the report.

But Cyprus, Finland, the Republic of Korea, Malta, Poland, and Slovakia saw their highest ever number of requests for asylum.

Malta has faced a gradual increase in asylum applications - 70 in 2000; 120 in 2001; 350 in 2002; 570 in 2003 and a staggering 1,230 last year, a one-year increase of 116 per cent.

Cyprus had 12.4 applications for asylum for every 1,000 inhabitants, Luxembourg had 3.5 and Malta 3.1.

The UN reported that the 10 new EU member states actually saw their combined total of asylum seekers increase by four per cent in the last year and by 18 per cent in the last quarter of 2004, compared with the previous quarter.

Raymond Hall, who directs the agency's Europe bureau, said: "Even though they are generally much lower, the numbers are still very uneven across the EU. We need to watch what is happening in the new member states very carefully. Cyprus, the Slovak Republic and Malta are all countries with young asylum systems that are struggling to cope".

France has replaced the US at the top of the list of industrialised countries receiving asylum applications from refugees. France received an estimated 61,600 asylum seekers, the 25-page UNHCR report said. The US, which was the top receiving country in 2003, came in second last year with 52,360.

The UK dropped from second to fourth, with 40,200, and Germany - the top asylum country in 13 of the past 20 years - was in fourth place with 35,600. Canada was in fifth with 25,500.

Russians - most of them Chechens - made up the largest nationality seeking asylum in other countries, with 30,100 applicants. They were followed by 22,300 people from Serbia and Montenegro, many of whom were from Kosovo. Afghan asylum seekers, totalling 50,000 in 2001, were now down to 8,800.

The new statistics "should reduce the pressure by politicians, the media and the public to make asylum systems more and more restrictive," Mr Hall said.

He said the EU could also take a giant step forward by working towards a system of responsibility and burden sharing so that next time there is a crisis they would be in a much better position to help the worst affected among them.

A spokesman for the EU Justice Commissioner told a news conference yesterday the Commission was fully aware of the problems being faced by new member states, including Malta. Spokesman Friso Roscam Abbing said the Commission agreed on the need to create more burden-sharing initiatives among all the EU member states in this area.

In fact, later on this year, the Commission will present its first proposal to member states for an EU regional protection programme.

As envisaged in The Hague programme, the EU also intends to further assist all member states that are facing this problem.

Among the initiatives, there is a proposed amendment to the already existing European Refugee Fund programme in order to give more aid to the most badly affected member states, both financially and technically, and to have better reception facilities for asylum seekers.