In the first half of 2025, applications seeking asylum in the European Union dropped by 23%, the EU’s asylum agency said Monday.
The Malta-based European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) said 399,000 new applications were lodged between January and June, down 114,000, or 23%, from the same period in 2024.
Germany lost its spot as the most preferred country for asylum seekers and saw the biggest decline in asylum applications standing at a 43% drop.
It was followed by followed by Italy and Spain, which saw 25% and 13% declines, respectively.
The far right will take credit for this, even though it has probably little to do with it—if anything, only indirectly.
But let them: it will then be even easier to identify their hate speech against foreigners as a key factor in the shortage of skilled workers.
In Germany, for example, there are approximately 68,000 doctors from abroad, a significant proportion of whom (approximately 6,500) come from Syria and entered the country as asylum seekers (source).
So it would be great if we could finally shift the migration debate away from mindless racism and toward meaningful politics—not only because racism is repugnant, but also for purely practical reasons: with dull-witted Nazis, the future cannot be secured; that much is certain.
Asylum claims are, of course, heavily driven by world events. They’re also seasonal in some cases, with drops in claims during the colder and wetter months (where that’s a relevant concern).
From my understanding a significant portion of asylum claims in Europe came from Syrian refugees.
In December of 2024 the former Syrian president Assad was deposed and the country has (seemingly) gotten a lot more stable since. So it makes sense that asylum claims would be down in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024.
This is a good development. Not only does it mean that people will be able to go home in relative safety, it also takes away a lot of the ammunition (the fallout from the refugee crisis that has been ongoing since 2015) that the right-wing populists and fascists all over Europe have been using to gain power.
I was thinking Germany has gotten a lot from Ukraine, but apparently they didn’t need to apply for asylum, they were given a different label.
AFAIK, they can enter without the need for a visa and then apply directly for social security.
Germany’s government is also pointing out that the nation needs 100’s of thousands of skilled workers to fill jobs. The local training services aren’t seeking the enrollments needed to fill the jobs, so where do they come from?
The usual suspects are in huge demand (MSTEM fields), but also anyone skilled in the trades is in high demand.
That’s not the same as asylum seekers in general, but with falling birthrates, the EU must import people or the current models must change away from oligarchy-oriented capitalism. Given how the rich people move the decision making, but those same people push right wing populism to oppress populations, they end up in a cleft fork: not enough local workers to feed the baby crushing machine, while requiring xenophobia to maintain their power base. Once the situation becomes untenable, they turn to fascism to maintain their power.
Tough times ahead, just like usual.
