Malta last year granted asylum to six out of every 10 applicants, making it the EU’s member state with the highest acceptance rate.

The EU average stood at less than three in 10, according to figures released by Eurostat, the EU’s statistics arm.

Greece only accepted three per cent of the 3,455 asylum claims while Cyprus took 17 per cent. On the other hand, Italy, which has similar migratory flows to Malta, accepted 38 per cent of the claims made.

However, the number of asylum applications in Malta last year fell significantly due to the small numbers of illegal immigrants reaching the island’s shores.

In 2010, the island only had 350 requests for asylum – it rejected 140 applicants, gave subsidiary protection to 165, declared 45 as refugees and gave 15 humanitarian status.

EU sources told The Times the main reason for Malta’s high acceptance rate was that those claiming asylum normally came from countries deemed to be “high-risk”. “The majority of migrants landing in Malta come from Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia and in these cases asylum is almost straight-forward.”

The EU as a whole received 257,800 asylum applicants last year, or 515 per million inhabitants. The main countries of origin were Afghanistan (eight per cent), Russia (seven per cent), Serbia (seven per cent), Iraq (six per cent) and Somalia (six per cent).

When compared with the population of each member state, the highest rates of applicants registered in 2010 were recorded in Cyprus (3,600 applicants per million inhabitants), Sweden (3,400), Belgium (2,400), Luxem-bourg (1,600) and Austria (1,300).