In 2010, the main countries of citizenship of these applicants were Afghanistan (20,600 or 8% of the total number of applicants), Russia (18,500 or 7%), Serbia (17,700 or 7%), Iraq (15,800 or 6%) and Somalia (14,400 or 6%).

These data on asylum applicants in the EU27 are taken from a report issued by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

Highest number of applicants recorded in France, Germany and Sweden
In 2010, the highest number of applicants were registered in France (51,600 applicants) followed by Germany 
(48,500), Sweden (31,900), Belgium (26,100), the United Kingdom (23,700), the Netherlands (15,100), Austria (11,100), Greece (10,300), Italy (10,100) and Poland (6,500). These ten Member States accounted for more than 90% of applicants registered in the EU27 in 2010.

When compared with the population of each Member State, the highest rates of applicants registered were recorded in Cyprus (3,600 applicants per million inhabitants), Sweden (3,400), Belgium (2,400), Luxembourg 
(1,600) and Austria (1,300).

In some Member States, a large proportion of the applicants came from a single country. The Member States with the highest concentrations were Poland (73% of the applicants came from Russia), Lithuania (50% from Georgia), Bulgaria (44% from Iraq), Latvia (38% from Afghanistan) and Hungary (33% from Afghanistan).

First instance decisions
In 2010 in the EU27, 222,100 first instance decisions were made on asylum applications. There were 167,000 rejections (75% of decisions), 27,000 applicants (12%) were granted refugee status, 20,400 (9%) subsidiary protection and 7,600 (3%) were granted authorisation to stay for humanitarian reasons. It should be noted that first instance decisions made in 2010 may refer to applications registered in previous years.

If the proportion of positive decisions varies considerably among Member States, it should be kept in mind that the country of origin of applicants also differs greatly between Member States.