According to a report by the High Commission for Migration (ACM): “Although Portugal continues not to stand out as a destination for applicants for international protection, in 2022 it was the country of the European Union 27 (EU27) with the greatest relative importance of granting refugee status among the total number of decisions handed down”, stresses the document from the ACM that will be presented on Friday, in Lisbon.

According to the statistical report on applicants and beneficiaries of international protection, 71 out of 100 decisions were positive for granting refugee status, above the European Union average, which is 23 favourable decisions.

“Portugal shows a very favourable evolution in recent years, increasing the expression of the granting of refugee status in the total of decisions issued, going from eight refugee statutes for every 100 decisions issued in 2019, to 18 in every 100 decisions in 2020, to 45 out of 100 decisions in 2021 and to 71 out of 100 decisions in 2022, the highest weight ever”, says the document.

According to the report, applicants for protection in Portugal have an age distribution “a little different from the average of countries” in the European Union, with a lower relative importance of applicants under 18 years old and a greater weight of applicants between the 18 and 34 years old.

In 2022, applicants under the age of 14 accounted for only 11% of all asylum applications processed in the country.

Few applications

The report points out, however, that Portugal is not among the main destinations for international protection in the world or in Europe.

“Of the 27.1 million refugees in the world, calculated by the UNHCR in 2021, only 2.9 million (13.4%) were in European Union countries and, of these refugees residing in the EU27, Portugal only welcomed about 2.7 thousand, that is, 0.1% of the total number of refugees in the EU27”, advances the ACM.

In 2021, Portugal ranked 20th among the 27 countries of the European Union that received the most refugees, well below the leader Germany, which in 2021 welcomed 5.9% of the total number of refugees in the world, concentrating 43 .9% of refugees received in the EU, ie 1.3 million people.

The report also underlines that, at the European level, not all nationalities have the same degree of recognition of the need for international protection, which directly influences the volume of favourable decisions of each country each year.

In the European Union, in 2022, the nationality with the highest recognition rate for requests for international protection was Syrian (94.2%), followed by Ukrainian (90.2%), Eritrean nationals (85.3%), Afghanistan (85%), Venezuela (76.3%), Mali (72%) and Somalia (61.5%).