It would take the EU more than a year to process all the pending asylum applications even if the flow of migrants were to stop today, according to the European Asylum Support Office.
EASO spokesman Jean-Pierre Schembri yesterday said more than 780,000 asylum applications were still pending across Europe, a third of which had been on hold for more than six months.
“The clearance rate is slow, too slow. Hopefully we will have some change on this front,” Mr Schembri said.
He was speaking to journalists ahead of today’s migration summit, which will see European and African leaders discuss a way forward on the migration problem.
Today’s summit is expected to see an agreement, among other things, on a €1.8 billion emergency trust fund – to which Malta will contribute €250,000 – to finance projects in Africa aimed at creating employment and support services.
EASO, an EU agency focused on implementing the common asylum system, assists migrants in applying for protection after having already decided to leave their country of origin.
Mr Schembri said the organisation had managed to relocate some 147 migrants out of more than 160,000 who had crossed into Europe so far this year.
The number of applications has more than doubled since last year and it doesn’t appear to be stopping
“The number of applications has more than doubled since last year and it doesn’t appear to be stopping,” he said.
The majority of applicants are “new migrants”, and according to EASO’s latest figures only three per cent are repeat applicants.
Malta has received nearly 1,000 applications so far this year, nearly a third more than in 2014. According to EASO, 60 per cent of Malta’s applicants came from Libya, followed by 13 per cent from Syria.
Giving a breakdown of those applying for protection, Mr Schembri said a third of all applicants were Syrian. There are 2.5 million Syrians in Turkey right now and Mr Schembri said these applications enjoyed a 97 per cent acceptance rate.
Those applying from the Balkans, on the other hand, were the fourth most popular group to apply for asylum but had an acceptance rate of less than one per cent, he said.
Mr Schembri said the migration flows were varied and this meant so too were the applicants. For instance, a fifth of Algerians were unaccompanied minors.
Some 10,000 unaccompanied minors were registered with EASO as of September. Mr Schembri said these were mostly 16- or 17-year-old young men.