Asylum to refugees – Germany leads Europe in numbers, Sweden in percentage

New Delhi: In the post-Cold War Europe unified Germany has become the leader of Europe. It has beaten former world powers from Europe, United Kingdom and France and has occupied the number one position. Germany is now leading the rehabilitation work for the refugees fleeing Syria and some African nations ravaged by internal wars. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is leading the European nations during the hour of crisis.

Smaller European nations are worried over the influx of refugees. They feel that it will threaten their European identity and Christian roots. Hungary has been very vocal in its opposition to taking more and more refugees. Some are openly describing it as a German problem.

The size of the country is deciding the number of refugees it can take.

According to Vocativ website, Germany has accepted the greatest percentage of asylum seeker applications of any European nation in 2014, but the continent's most-populous country falls way behind nine smaller nations when it comes to the number of migrants it takes in per capita. Sweden, which has about an eighth of the population of Germany, accepted the highest proportion of asylum seekers in the European Union, at 378.12 per 100,000 citizens. Germany placed tenth, at just 50.02 per 100,000, which was also lower than smaller nations such as Malta, Switzerland, Cyprus and Denmark.

The UK, on sheer numbers of migrants accepted, was the seventh most-generous country, accepting 38.6 per cent of asylum seeker applications in 2014. But, as with Germany, it looked less generous when its population of 65 million is taken into account. By that calculation, it came in 15th. However, it still did better than Hungary, which was one of the least generous under both rankings, according to Eurostat data compiled by Vocativ.

Number Of accepted asylum seeker applications in first instance per 100,000 population, 2014

Sweden – 378.12

Malta – 301.85

Switzerland – 187.66

Cyprus – 114.91

Denmark – 96.82

Bulgaria – 96.61

Norway – 94.95

Netherlands – 83.99

Belgium – 71.58

Germany – 50.02