The European Union granted more than 330,400 people asylum in 2018, according to the annual figures provided by the European statistics bureau Eurostat.
30% of those asylum seekers were Syrian. The amount of asylum seekers accepted dropped by 40% compared to 2017 (533,000).
The majority of those granted asylum within the EU were Syrians (96,100 people, 29% of the total number of people granted asylum by EU member states), followed by Afghans (53,500, 16%), and Iraqis (24,600, 7%).
Syrians were the biggest group to be granted asylum in 16 member states last year. Nearly 70% (67,000) of the 96,100 Syrians granted asylum within the EU went to Germany.
Germany accepted the largest number of asylum seekers (139,600, 40%) in 2018, followed by Italy (47,900) and France (41,400).
163,800 of those granted asylum in the EU received refugee status (49%), 100,300 got subsidiary protection (30%) and 69,300 (21%) were given a residence permit for humanitarian reasons.
10,250 immigrants were granted asylum by Belgium: 8,340 were given refugee status and 1,910 were granted subsidiary protection.
