(29 January 2021) – In the first 10 months of 2020 , the EU as a whole registered a 33% year-on-year decrease in asylum applications and a 6-year low in irregular border crossings.
However, the impact was not a uniform decrease: several local communities received unexpected large numbers of arrivals, and the overall number of arrivals has continued recovering after a large drop around April.
Updated data on population changes overall, including legal migration which represents a large majority of migration into the EU, will be available later this year. That data is likely to show a large decrease in migration overall due to current restrictions.
Data on returns in 2020 will also be available later this year, where a decrease is also anticipated.