The report provides the following information:

- About 117 800 persons sought asylum in the EU-28 during the third quarter of 2013, which is an increase of around 30 per cent compared to the third quarter of 2012.

- With 15 000 more, Germany accounts for half of the overall increase of asylum applicants in all EU Member States in Q3 2013.  But also Hungary (especially applicants from Pakistan and Kosovo), Italy (especially applicants from Africa), and Sweden (especially applicants from Syria) have seen a huge increase in the number of asylum applications compared to the third quarter of 2012.

- Germany (35 925), Sweden (16 695), France (15 670), Italy (7 875) en UK (7 730) were the most popular countries for asylum seekers in the EU during the third quarter of 2013.

- Belgium registered 5 540 asylum applicants during the third quarter of 2013 (about 4,7 % of the total number of asylum applicants in the EU-28).  Contrary to previous years, Belgium is no longer among the top 5 of most important countries of destination for asylum seekers in the EU (in absolute numbers).  Belgium was the country with the biggest decrease in absolute terms in Q3 2013 compared to Q3 2012 (figure 3, p.2).

- Malta and Sweden are the countries with the highest number of asylum applicants per million inhabitants in the third quarter of 2013, followed by Luxembourg, Austria and Belgium (table 1, p.4).

- In absolute numbers there was a strong increase of asylum applicants from Syria, Russia and Eritrea and also from stateless asylum applicants (especially in Sweden). In Q3 2013 Syria was the most important country of origin for asylum seekers in the EU, followed by Russia, Serbia, Afghanistan and Pakistan (table 2, p.5).

- Table 6 on page 9 indicates which are the most popular countries of destination in the EU-27 for the thirty main citizenships of asylum seekers in the EU-27.  The asylum influx from a specific country of origin is almost always concentrated towards two or three countries in the EU-27.

- Figure 9 on page 11 compares the first instance decisions by outcome for the six member states (Germany, France, Sweden, Italy, UK and Austria) reporting the highest number of first instance decisions issued during the third quarter of 2013. Especially in Italy (mostly humanitarian status) and Sweden (mostly subsidiary protection) the percentage of positive decisions was high.

- Table 9 on page 12 shows that the protection rate in Belgium is higher in comparison with the EU average, although in Belgium humanitarian statuses are not counted as a positive decision. For the 3rd quarter of 2013 the protection rate was as follows:

Belgium: Refugee status (23.6 %), Subsidiary protection (13.2%), Humanitarian reasons (N/A), Rejected (63.1 %).

EU 28: Refugee status (14.7%), Subsidiary protection (11.9%), Humanitarian reasons (4.7%), Rejected (68.6%).

- As illustrated by figure 10 and table 11, the outcome of the first instance decisions in the EU-27 shows large differences depending on the country of origin. For Syria almost all decisions were positive (mostly subsidiary protection status), while for Serbia almost all the first instance decisions had a negative outcome.

The full report with tables and figures can be found above and can also be found on the Eurostat website.

The report is only available in English.