According to the BBC, the total number of registered applicants is about 121,000 people. According to experts, there is a trend towards a decrease in the number of potential refugees. Two factors are primarily at play here. The first is the elimination of repressive regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, which reduced the flow of refugees from these two countries. In addition, in response to strong public pressure, Western governments tightened border controls, reducing the number of people who manage to reach their territories and apply for refugee status.
The most significant reduction in the number of such applications is observed in Britain, where over the past year the government, in close contact with the French side, managed to reduce the flow of illegal immigrants entering Britain through the English Channel. Recently, Greece refused asylum and transit to Kosovo Roma, citing the end of the war in Kosovo and the lack of necessary documentation.
Victims of migration bureaucracy are more often people of other cultures and faiths, notes Vremya Novostei, willing to subject themselves to any suffering and deprivation rather than return home. When 33-year-old Iranian Abbas Amini, who two months ago received refugee status in the UK, learned that migration authorities had reviewed his case in favor of deportation to Iran, he sewed his eyes and mouth shut in protest. Last year, a similar thing happened in Australia, where a group of Iranian and Afghan migrants, having sewn their mouths shut, protested against living conditions in a refugee camp.
British organizations that help refugees criticized the government's intention to halve the number of applications for refugee status. They say that real refugees who are forced to flee persecution must be treated not as people who pose a threat. However, in many European countries, the refugee problem is closely linked to another politically sensitive issue - the growing number of immigrants from countries that are carriers of other cultural traditions.
Thus, the reduction in the number of refugees will be seen as a major success for the governments of many countries that in recent years have faced the problem of growing popularity of right-wing and anti-immigrant parties. Europe turned out to be unprepared for the huge influx of people after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And this, in turn, led to a rethinking of the policies of many countries on the continent. And most importantly, society demanded that there be a clear distinction between the concepts of refugee and labor migrant.