Asylum figures: Germany no longer asylum leaders in Europe

Germany was replaced by France in February as the leader for asylum applications in Europe. According to the statistics of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) published in Nuremberg, in the total number of applications in France with 13,080 and Spain with 12,975 with 12,775. For comparison: In the total of 2024, Germany was still clearly at the top with 250,615 applications in front of Spain with 166,175 and Italy with 158,605.

Lowest March in three years

So far, there is no international comparison for March. In Germany, however, the number of asylum applications decreased further, to 10,647 – including 8,983 income. That is 19.7 percent less than in February and 45.3 percent less than in March 2024. It is the lowest March since 2022. This is primarily due to a clear decline in people from people from the three main countries of origin Syria, Afghanistan and Turkey.

41,123 asylum applications were received throughout the first quarter of 2025, including 36,136 income. In the same period of the previous year, 71,061 applications – including 65,419 prohibitions in income – were significantly more. The number of applications from the long -term civil war country of Syria halved in the first quarter: from 19,687 last year to 9,861. In the case of initial accounts from Turkey, there was even a minus of 61.2 percent to only 3,755. The number of income from Afghanistan decreased by 42.5 percent to 5,616.

Faeser: Irregular migration is clearly pushed back

The executive Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) emphasized that the irregular migration to Europe was pushed back significantly “by a strong bundle of measures, through its own German action and close European cooperation”. Now the new European asylum system (GEAS) must be enforced “so that we can better protect the EU external borders and permanently get a fair distribution of refugees in the EU”.

According to BAMF President Hans-Eckhard Sommer, the reason for the recent decline in the number of asylum applications was mainly measures on the border with Hungary. At the end of March, Sommer had said in a lecture declared as a personal opinion that it was wrong to adhere to individual asylum law and to hope for positive effects of the GeAS reform that had been decided. Humanitarian recordings are more sensible “at a considerable amount”, for example depending on the ability to integrate the labor market.

Protection quota is currently not very meaningful

In only 18.5 percent of the cases, the applicants received protection status. This quota – in 2024 it was still 44.4 percent – is currently not meaningful because a decision -making stop was imposed due to the unclear political situation in Syria. Until further notice, asylum procedures of people from Syria are only decided in exceptions. When the decision stop is lifted is currently unclear. At the end of March, a total of 180,597 asylum procedures were pending, 7.5 percent less than at the end of February.

Next little Dublin transfers

From a German perspective, the controversial Dublin procedure for the distribution of asylum seekers within Europe does not continue to work optimally. According to the Dublin regulation, Germany submitted a total of 13,223 takeover requests to EU countries from January to March, in the area of ​​which the asylum seeker had submitted for the first time. In 8,929 cases, the relevant EU countries agreed. However, in just 1,715 cases, the Federal Office’s statistics actually came to the transfer.