Eight out of every 10 asylum applications received by Malta last year were accepted, according to new figures issued by Eurostat.
At an 84.2 per cent approval rate, Malta comes in second place when compared to the rest of the EU in giving the green light to asylum applicants.
Bulgaria was at the top of the list in 2013, accepting 87 per cent of asylum applications.
One of the main common links between Malta and Bulgaria – which is the main reason for the high acceptance rate – is that the nationalities applying for asylum mainly came from conflict countries, Somalia in Malta’s case and Syria in Bulgaria’s.
The EU statistics show that in 2013, Malta received a total of 2,245 asylum applications, the highest since 2009.
The largest group, 1,015, arrived from Somalia, followed by 475 from Eritrea and 250 from Syria.
In nearly all these cases protection is granted automatically on humanitarian grounds.
Last year, Malta accepted all but 300 applications, with the majority, 1,445, granted subsidiary protection. Only 45 were given refugee status while the rest of the positive decisions, 115, were given protection for humanitarian reasons.
On a per capita level, Malta also placed second last year among the EU 28.
Sweden received the most applications per capita, 5,680 per million inhabitants, followed by Malta (5,300), Austria (2,100), Luxembourg (2,000) and Hungary (1,900).
Eurostat figures clash with UNHCR figures given for last year with the latter placing Malta before Sweden for the highest number of applications per capita. Rates below 100 applicants per million inhabitants were observed in seven EU member states: Portugal (50), the Czech Republic (65), Estonia (70), Romania (75), Slovakia (80), Latvia and Spain (both 95).
On average, the EU received 860 asylum applications per million inhabitants. Eurostat data show that there were 435,000 applications for asylum in the EU in 2013.
Germany topped the list, with 127,000 applications, followed by France (65,000), Sweden (54,000), the UK (30,000) and Italy (28,000).
The five member states accounted for 70 per cent of all applicants registered in the EU 28 last year.