Malta granted some form of protection status to 815 people in 2017, according to data published by Eurostat, the EU’s statistical agency.
Unlike most EU countries, where the highest number of asylum applicants were Syrian nationals, the largest group of people granted protection in Malta were Libyan.
During the year under review Malta gave protection to 315 Libyans (39%), 240 Syrians (29%) and 100 100 Eritreans (12%).
While the Syrian conflict has affected many European countries, with streams of refugees applying for asylum in many member states, Afghanis topped the list of successful asylum applications in Belgium, France, Hungary, Slovakia and Sweden.
Of the 815 people granted protection in Malta, 190 were given refugee status, 610 were given subsidiary protection and 10 were given protection on humanitarian grounds.
There were 15 resettled refugees, meaning refugees who were resettled to Malta from other member states.
The country that accepted the biggest number of asylum applications was Germany, with 325,370 positive decisions. Next in line was France with 40,575, and Italy, with 35,130.
In total, the 28 Member States granted protection status to 538 000 asylum seekers in 2017, down by almost 25% from 2016. In addition to these, the EU Member States received nearly 24,000 resettled refugees.
The largest group of beneficiaries of protection status in the EU in 2017 remained citizens of Syria (175,800 persons, or 33% of the total number of persons granted protection status in the EU Member States), followed by citizens of Afghanistan (100,700 or 19%) and those of Iraq (64,300 or 12%).
Out of all the persons who were granted protection status in 2017 in the EU, 271,600 persons were granted refugee status (50% of all positive decisions), 189,000 were given subsidiary protection (35%) and 77,500 authorisation to stay for humanitarian reasons (14%).
The number of decisions granting protection status to Syrian citizens has dropped since 2016 (when they accounted for a share of 57% of all grants) however, they remained the largest group granted protection status in eighteen Member States in 2017. Of the 175,800 Syrian citizens granted protection status in the EU, more than 70% received protection status in Germany (124, 800).