GENEVA, Switzerland, March 1 (UPI) -- The number of asylum seekers granted entry into industrialized countries fell in 2004 to its lowest level in 16 years with France replacing the United States as the country most likely to allow in those requesting refugee status.
An estimated 61,600 asylum seekers entered France according to the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
When the number in search of asylum was looked at relative to the size of the hosting country, as measured by total population, a different picture emerged. Using a per capita formula over the past five years, the UNHCR ranked Cyprus, Austria, Sweden, Luxembourg and Ireland as the top receiving countries in the 25-member European Union, with Britain, France and Germany all coming in mid-table.
Some 368,000 people applied for asylum last year in the 38 industrialized countries for which comparable historical statistics were available was the lowest since 1988, the Geneva-based agency said. In the six non-European countries included in the list, the combined total was the lowest since 1986.
The numbers "accepted" in Europe were also back down to the levels of the late 1980s, although still higher than they were for a couple of years in the mid-1990s. The UNHCR said figures were considered provisional and subject to change.
"Once granted asylum, they become refugees," a UNHCR spokesman explained.
Compounding a similarly steep decline last year, the number of asylum claims in industrialized countries fell by 22 percent in 2004. In the European Union, the number fell by 19 percent, in North America by 26 percent, and in Australia and New Zealand by 28 percent.
In most individual asylum countries, the 2004 total was the lowest for many years. In Germany, for example, it was the smallest number since 1984; in the United States and Switzerland, it was the lowest since 1987; and in the Netherlands, there have not been so few since 1988. And the number of asylum seekers arriving in Britain is back down to the levels of the early to mid-1990s, after plummeting 61 percent in two years.
"This really should reduce the pressure by politicians, media and the public to make asylum systems more and more restrictive to the point where many genuine refugees have enormous difficulty getting access to Europe, or getting recognized once they are there," said Raymond Hall, director of the Europe Bureau of UNHCR at the U.N. agency's headquarters in Geneva.
"In most industrialized countries, it should simply not be possible to claim there is a huge asylum crisis any more," he said.
France, in 2004, became the preferred destination. The United States, which had the highest numbers the previous year, came second with 52,400. Britain fell to third with 40,200, and the primary asylum country in 13 of the past 20 years, Germany, was in fourth place with 35,600. Canada was fifth with 25,500.
For a few of the countries listed, including Cyprus, Finland, the South Korea, Malta, Poland and the Slovak Republic, the number of asylum seekers in 2004 was the highest on record, the refugee agency said.
Hidden among the general steep fall in numbers across the industrialized world was the fact that 10 new EU member states actually saw their combined total increase by 4 percent in 2004, and by 18 percent in the last quarter of the year, compared to the previous quarter.
"Hopefully, with the numbers right down, most countries will now be able to devote more attention to improving the quality of their asylum systems, from the point of view of protecting refugees, rather than just cutting numbers," said Hall. "The EU could also take a giant step forward by working towards a system of responsibility and burden sharing, so that next time there is a crisis they are in a much better position to help the worst affected among them."
He said even though the numbers generally were much lower, they were still very uneven across the EU.
"We need to watch what is happening in the new member states very carefully. Cyprus, the Slovak Republic and Malta are all countries with young asylum systems that are struggling to cope," Hall said.
The largest group of asylum seekers in 2004 was from the Russian Federation at 30,100, most of whom were Chechens; followed by asylum seekers from Serbia and Montenegro, 22,300, many of them from Kosovo; China, 19,700; Turkey, 16,200, and India, 11,900, the refugee agency said.
The 10 leading nationalities seeking asylum all recorded a significant drop in 2004.
Perhaps most striking, the UNHCR said, was the number of Afghans -- the top group in 2001 with more than 50,000 asylum seekers -- has fallen by 83 percent in the past three years. In 2004, they were in 13th place with 8,800 asylum seekers.
"When Afghans saw things improving at home, they started going home in big numbers," said Hall.
However, half way through 2004, the number of Iraqis claiming asylum started to rise again, although not enough to lift them above ninth in the list of asylum-seeking nationalities by the end of the year, said Hall.
