The Eurostat Newsrelease from 29 March 2011 presents the following:

In 2010, there were 257 800 asylum applicants registered in the EU27, or 515 applicants per million inhabitants. It is estimated that around 90% of these were new applicants and around 10% were repeat applicants. In 2009, there were 264 000 asylum applicants.

In 2010, the main countries of citizenship of these applicants were Afghanistan (20 600 or 8% of the total number of applicants), Russia (18 500 or 7%), Serbia (17 700 or 7%), Iraq (15 800 or 6%) and Somalia (14 400 or 6%).

In 2010, the highest number of applicants were registered in France (51 600 applicants) followed by Germany (48 500), Sweden (31 900), Belgium (26 100), the United Kingdom (23 700), the Netherlands (15 100), Austria (11 100), Greece (10 300), Italy (10 100) and Poland (6 500). These ten Member States accounted for more than 90% of applicants registered in the EU27 in 2010.

When compared with the population of each Member State, the highest rates of applicants registered were recorded in Cyprus (3 600 applicants per million inhabitants), Sweden (3 400), Belgium (2 400), Luxembourg (1 600) and Austria (1 300).

The report data in focus on asylum statistics for the year 2010 can also be consulted on the website of Eurostat