Austria could record fewer than 10,000 asylum applications this year, which would be the lowest figure since the beginning of the new millennium and the first time since 1997 that the country has fallen below this mark.
According to the latest Interior Ministry statistics, Austrian authorities registered 6,512 asylum applications by the end of August. If the current trend continues, the annual total is expected to reach about 10,000 applications, reported by Die Presse.
Minors accounted for the majority of the claims, with around 3,300 applications submitted by children and teenagers. This comes despite the fact that family reunification remains largely suspended. Only 60 people entered Austria under the family-reunification programme.
The Interior Ministry said many of the applications by minors were submitted by children born in Austria to families already living in the country. As a result, the number of “original” applications, mainly those made by people who have recently entered Austria, was much lower, at 2,483.
Among applicants from Syria and Afghanistan, the two largest national groups, most claims were also not original. In many cases, they were filed by children born in Austria after their parents had arrived.
Austria granted asylum to 4,333 people this year, while another 3,657 received subsidiary protection. A further 1,180 people were granted humanitarian residence permits.
By the beginning of September, 10,440 people had left Austria. Slightly more than half were removed against their will, while the remainder departed voluntarily.
The fall in applications has also eased pressure on Austria’s basic welfare system. At the beginning of September, around 41,600 people were receiving support, about 11,000 fewer than at the start of the year. Some 60 percent were people displaced from Ukraine by the war.
The Interior Ministry attributed the decline partly to the disruption of smuggling routes in eastern Austria. It said these routes had shifted towards the so called coastal Balkan route, which bypasses Austria.
Officials credited the country’s border protection strategy, which has expanded controls from the immediate border into surrounding regions and further inland. The ministry said the approach had made illegal crossings more difficult and dangerous for organised smuggling networks, while also reducing waiting times for commuters at border crossings.
