• There were five times as many applications for asylum than detections at the external border. Hence, applications are becoming less associated with irregular migration
• 10% of all applications were repeat applications in the same country – this rises to a third of all applications for some citizenships
• The overall EU+ recognition rate remained stable at 33 %
• Syrians, Afghans and Venezuelans lodged a quarter of all applications
• Afghans lodged a third more applications compared to 2018, but received fewer decisions with recognition rates varying widely between issuing countries
• Several Latin-American citizenships also lodged far more applications than in 2018
• A quarter of all applications were lodged by applicants who can enter the Schengen area visa-free
• Applicants from visa-liberalised countries (VLC) tended to have low recognition rates, except for nationals of El Salvador (37 %)
• Applicants from Venezuela had a low recognition rate (*) but are currently issued with humanitarian protection by some countries. Despite increased applications, EU+ countries issued fewer first-instance decisions compared to 2018
• Syrians (85 %), Yemenis (82 %) and Eritreans (81 %) had the highest recognition rates, whereas North Macedonians and Moldovans had the lowest (1 %)
• Towards the end of 2019 there were more than 900 000 cases pending at all instances in the EU+
• At the end of the year, some 540 559 cases were pending at first instance, up by 20 % from a year earlier, and the most since July 2017

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