EU states granted protection status to 185,000 asylum seekers last year, nearly 50 per cent more than with 2013. Since 2008, more than 750,000 asylum seekers were granted protection status in the EU. Data for Austria is not available.
Malta granted protection to 1,260 people. It received 1,735 requests.

The largest group of beneficiaries of protection status in the EU last year remained Syrians (37 per cent), followed by Eritreans (eight per cent) and Afghans (also eight per cent).

In 2014, the highest numbers of persons granted protection status were registered in Germany (47,600, or +82% compared with 2013) and Sweden (33,000, or +25%), followed by France (20,600, or +27%) and Italy (20,600, or +42%).

Out of the 185,000 persons who were granted protection status in 2014 in the 27 EU Member States for which data are available, 104,000 persons were granted refugee status (56 per cent of all positive decisions), 61,000 subsidiary protection (33 per cent) and 20,000 authorisation to stay for humanitarian reasons (11 per cent).

In addition, the EU states received almost 6,500 resettled refugees. While refugee and subsidiary protection status are defined by EU law, humanitarian status is granted on the basis of national legislation.

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