Germany gets 27 Syrian asylum applications for every one to the UK - contrasting attitudes towards

[pampango]

immigration.

Britain receives fewer asylum seekers in a year than Germany does in a month, as polls in two countries show contrasting attitudes towards immigration

Data on international migration in the year to June shows that the UK received 25,571 applications for asylum over the 12-month period. Germany received 296,710 over the same period, according to Eurostat data. In fact, Germany received 37,531 asylum applications in July this year alone – over 10,000 more than the UK for the entire year.

To look at this in a slightly different way, the UK represents 12.7% of the EU population while Germany makes up 16%. Looking at the latest figures available for all 28 EU countries, the UK received 1.9% of Syrian asylum applications in the year up to March 2015 while Germany took on 37%. In total, the EU received some 626,000 asylum seekers in 2014. Although Germany received by far the most, Sweden was the member state with the highest number relative to its population size.

A poll released this week by Ipsos Mori found that concerns over immigration are at an all time high as more than half of UK adults now view it as one of the top three issues facing the country. Figures by YouGov, also released this week, reveal that for a majority of Britons immigration is one of the “worst things about the country today”.

In comparison, an FgW poll for German broadcaster ZDF this week showed that 60% of Germans thought the country could cope with the very high number of refugees, and 86% said that Germany was a country of migrants.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/datablog/2015/aug/27/germany-gets-27-syrian-asylum-applications-for-every-one-to-the-uk

It would be interesting to see a partisan breakdown of attitudes towards immigration in those countries. The far-right in the UK, led by UKIP, has been pushing for anti-immigrant and anti-refugee policies for years now. Apparently it having an effect.

There is not similar RW opposition to immigration and refugees in Germany though there have been street demonstrations and even arson attacks on refugees centers of late. I was quite surprised that 86% of Germans view their country as a "country of migrants". I would not have expected that in what used to be referred to as "Old Europe".

Sweden is the most liberal of the 3 countries but its openness to refugees has sparked the growth of a strong RW opposition party in the last few years.

[DetlefK]

1. Germany has large russian and turkish minorities.

In some way, Germany became a country of migrants after WWII (turkish guest-workers) and after the Cold War (Eastern-Europeans).

[pampango]

2. I had heard about the Turkish guest workers but not about the others. Thanks for the information.n/t

[Romulox]

3. "Asylum seekers" don't get to choose their country, passing over several others in the process. nt

[pampango]

4. That sounds logical. I wonder what accounts for the huge number of asylum applications

being received by Germany (and on a per-capita basis by Sweden) as opposed to the UK if asylum seekers don't get to choose?

Perhaps it is the organizations that screen the asylum seekers what are directing the applications to countries they think will be more receptive.

[Romulox]

6. That's because this diaspora is largely driven by the kind of rightwing economics you espouse. nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Germany has dropped the rule which said asylum seekers ought to apply in the first EU country

they get to:

Germany, which expects to take a staggering 800,000 migrants this year, became the first EU country to suspend a 1990 protocol which forces refugees to seek asylum in the first European country in which they set foot.

The German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees ratified an order suspending the so-called Dublin Protocol. “Germany will become the member state responsible for processing their claims,” a government statement said.

All current expulsion orders for Syrian asylum-seekers will be revoked, the government said. New Syrian arrivals will no longer be forced to fill in questionnaires to determine which country they had first arrived in. In the first six months of 2015, Germany registered 44,417 applications from Syrian asylum-seekers.

The decision piles further pressure on other EU countries – including Britain – which have used the 1990 protocol as the legal basis for refusing to take any share of the refugees from the Middle East and Africa now pouring into Europe to escape war, oppression or famine.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-opens-its-gates-berlin-says-all-syrian-asylumseekers-are-welcome-to-remain-as-britain-is-urged-to-make-a-similar-statement-10470062.html

Greece is criticised for not processing asylum seekers:

Visiting the Macedonian-Greek border, Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said the situation in the Balkans was “dramatic”.
...
Kurz criticised the Greeks, whose borders form part of the EU’s external frontier, for failing to process asylum requests on Greek soil as per EU rules. On Monday, two people drowned and five were believed missing when a dinghy carrying migrants capsized off the Greek island of Lesbos, where aid groups say 1,500 have been arriving daily for the past week.

The Greek government has chartered a car ferry to collect them from the islands and bring them to the mainland on a daily basis. It carried 2,500 people, mainly Syrians, on Monday to Athens, where buses awaited to take them north.

“It is not just a case of Greece not processing those (asylum) claims, but they are actively doing their very best to get the refugees to move on to central Europe as soon as possible,” Kurz said.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/08/24/uk-europe-migrants-balkans-idUKKCN0QT10Q20150824

[pampango]

9. Thanks for that information. Kudos to Germany for stepping up when others will not. n/t

[Blue_Tires]

8. You'd think so...

But a whole lot of migrants/refugees are skipping south/southeast Europe for the paradise of the north...

[COLGATE4]

5. Germany, due largely to a declining birthrate

has a declining population. It needs more people and allowing immigrants is one way to do it.