European asylum applications for April 2000

The latest monthly European asylum statistics are available. Among other things, they show that for the month of April, there were 27,030 asylum applications in 24 European countries - an 18 percent decline over the same month a year ago when 32,970 applications were received. The April figures were the lowest since June 1998. Belgium was the only major receiving country that registered an increase in April 2000 - of 0.8 percent. Decreases were registered in France (-33 percent), Germany (-19 percent ), the Netherlands (-13 percent), and the United Kingdom (-12 percent). The UK remained the largest recipient of asylum applications, receiving 21.9 percent of all applications submitted.