Right of asylum

A map showing the ideal distribution of refugees in Europe

Published on 10 June 2015 at 20:14

By Lorenzo Ferrari.

On 27 May, the European Commission put forward its plan for quotas to distribute 40,000 asylum seekers fairly between EU member states from now to 2016. The distribution is currently not even, and asylum requests are examined by each asylum seeker's country of arrival.

The map shows the results of a study carried out by Daniel Thym from the University of Konstanz. Thym simulated a balanced distribution of refugees between the different European countries, using the same criteria that are applied in Germany to distribute refugees between different regional authorities. The criteria are based on population (one third) and quality of life (two thirds).

This ideal distribution of refugees is compared with actual data on the current successful requests for asylum (in 2013, the data for 2014 are here). The dark column shows the real figure for 2013, while the lighter shows the ideal figure. Countries in green are those that accept more refugees than they should, according to this comparison. Those in purple accept fewer. Sweden and Austria are among the most virtuous, along with Hungary and Bulgaria.

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