The number of asylum applications in Austria continues to decline this year. According to the Ministry of the Interior, almost 4,300 asylum applications were made in January, around 40 percent fewer than in December 2022 with around 7,000 applications. For February, the Ministry of the Interior expects a further decline in the number of applications by up to 40 percent compared to January.
The Ministry of the Interior sees the reasons for the sharp drop in asylum applications in recent months in “intensive controls by the Austrian police on Hungarian territory as part of Operation Fox”, but above all in the end of visa-free travel for Tunisians and Indians in Serbia, according to the report was called in a broadcast.
If one compares the January application numbers with the previous years, a different picture emerges: in January 2022 there were 3,349 asylum applications, in January 2021 1,587 asylum applications.
Most of the asylum applications (4,288 in total) this January were made by Moroccan citizens (1,203), followed by people from Syria (828), Afghanistan (657), India (378) and Turkey (279). The chance of asylum for people from Morocco is extremely low, last year only 13 Moroccan citizens were granted asylum in Austria, which corresponds to a recognition rate of 0.3 percent.
Chancellor Karl Nehammer and Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) are traveling to Morocco next Monday and Tuesday. The Ministry of the Interior announced that they want to focus the talks there above all on the topic of illegal migration and readmission.
