Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union

Unit F2: Population and migration

2920 Luxembourg LUXEMBOURG

Dublin statistics contain information based on Article 4.4 of the Council Regulation 862/2007 with reference to:

• The number of requests for taking back or taking charge of an asylum seeker or a third-country national.
• The provisions on which the requests for taking back or taking charge are based.
• The decisions taken in response to the requests for taking back or taking charge.
• The number of unilateral decisions taken by Member States to examine the application of an asylum seeker
• The numbers of transfers to which the decisions taken in response to the requests for taking back or taking charge lead.
• The number of requests for information and responses on such requests.

Data is presented country by country for: the European Member States and the European Economic Area (EEA).

ISO 3166 is the International Standard for country codes and codes for their subdivisions. Therefore the classification of Dublin data for reporting (GEO) and partner countries (PARTNER) is based on ISO-3166 (using alpha-2) with minor changes.

For any non-international concepts/breakdowns, classifications are based on Eurostat standards, e.g.:

• type of request (REQUEST)
• legal provisions of requests/decisions under 'Dublin' Regulation (LEG_PROV)
• duration of transfer (DURATION)
• type of decision on requests (DECISION)

Asylum migration

Member States shall examine the application of any third country national who applies for asylum at the border or in their territory of any one of them.
The application shall be examined by a single Member State, which shall be the one which the criteria set out in Chapter III of Council Regulation (EC) 604/2013 indicates is responible.
Under certain circumstances, each Member State may examine an application for asylum lodged by a third-country national even if such examination is not its responsability according to the criteria laid down in Council Regulation (EC) 604/2013.
In such cases, this Member State shall become the Member State responsible for the examination of the application.
The Member State conducting a procedure for determining the Member State responsible or the Member State which has been requested to take charge of or to take back the applicant shall inform the Member State previously responsible.

Requests: For the incoming (resp. outgoing) dataset. Requests to take back to take charge of an asylum applicant or requests for information addressed by the Member States (Partner) to the declaring Member State (Geo) (resp. by the declaring Member State (Geo) to the Member States (Partner)).

Total number of requests: Total number of requests to take back and to take charge of an asylum applicant.

Total number of taking charge requests: Total number of taking charge requests
This category is split in three categories based on the Council Regulation (EC) 604/2013.

Taking charge requests: Family reasons (Art.6, Art.7, Art.8, Art.14): Number of taking charge requests for family reasons. See Council Regulation (EC) 604/2013 for more details on Art.6,7,8 and 14.

Taking charge requests: Documentation and entry reasons (Art.9, Art.10, Art.11, Art.12):Number of taking charge requests for documentation and entry reasons. See Council Regulation (EC) 604/2013 for more details on Art.9,10 and 11.

Taking charge requests: Humanitarian reasons (Art.15): Number of taking charge requests for humanitarian resons. See Council Regulation (EC) 604/2013 for more details on Art.15.

Total number of taking back requests: Total number of taking back requests
This category is split in four categories based on the Council Regulation (EC) 604/2013.

Taking back requests: Withdrawal of application during Dublin procedure (Art.4.5):Number of taking back request due to the withdrawal on application during Dublin procedure. Council Regulation (EC) 604/2013 for more details on Art.4.5.

Taking back requests: Under examination - no permission to stay  (Art.16.1.c):Number of taking back request due to the presence of the asylum applicant in a country without permission to stay wheb this country differs from the country where his application is under examination. Council Regulation (EC) 604/2013 for more details on Art.16.1.c.

Taking back requests: Withdrawal - new application  (Art.16.1.d): Number of taking back request due to the withdrawal of an application under examination in a country while lodging a new application in another country. See Council Regulation (EC) 604/2013 for more details on Art.16.1.d.

Taking back requests: Rejection - no permission to stay  (Art.16.1.e): Number of taking back request due to the withdrawal due to the presence of asylum applicant in a country without permission to stay and whose application has been rejected in the country wherehis application was examined.

Total EURODAC: Number of incoming (resp. incoming accepted, incoming refused, outgoing, outgoing accpeted, outgoing refused) requests based on Eurodac hits.

Taking charge requests based on EURODAC: Number of incoming (resp. incoming accepted, incoming refused, outgoing, outgoing accpeted, outgoing refused) taking charge requests based on Eurodac hits.

Taking back requests based EURODAC: Number of incoming (resp. incoming accepted, incoming refused, outgoing, outgoing accpeted, outgoing refused) taking back requests based on Eurodac hits.

Total number of pending requests at the end of reference period:Number of requests for take charge and take back addressed by other Member States to which a response is pending at the end of the reference period.

Total number of requests for information: Number of request for information submitted by the Member States (Partner) to the declaring Member State (Geo).

Number of answers to requests for information: Number of request for information provided by the Member States (Partner) to the declaring Member State (Geo).

Commission services recommend that Article 4.4 is interpreted as referring to the number of persons concerned by the request, decision and transfers in order to be comparable with other asylum statistics collected by Eurostat.
However, as the Article 4.4 of the Council Regulation 862/2007 refers to statistics based on the number of requests, figures may refer to the number of requests instead of the number of persons.

Please see " Concepts and definition".

EU Member States, the United Kingdom, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland

Council Regulation 862/2007 applies to Dublin statistics collected since 2008.

Not applicable

Number (number of requests, number of decisions, number of transfers, etc.)

Calendar year

The compilation of Dublin statistics is based on Article 4.4 of Council Regulation 862/2007 of 11 July 2007 which depicts in details the data provisions Member States are bound to supply Eurostat with.

Not applicable

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.

Not applicable

Not fixed

Not fixed

In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat's website (see item 10 - 'Accessibility and clarity') respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users.

Although data periodicity is annual, data is updated on a continuous basis following any new incoming data transmission (first or revised data).

Data on Dublin statistics are used in the frame of our annual News Release publications.

Our News Releases can be found under this portal: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/publications/collections/news-releases.

Eurostat produces statistical articles via the Statistics Explained platform. The article Dublin statistics on countries responsible for asylum application articles describe recent annual and long term developments in relation to Dublin statistics in the European Union and EEA area.

Our latest publications can be downloaded for free from this portal:
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/asylum-and-managed-migration/publications

Please consult free data on-line or refer to contact details.

Not applicable

Not applicable

Please see the annex "Technical Guidelines on Dublin statistics".

Please refer as well to Article 4.4 of the Council Regulation (EC) No 862/2007

See annexes.

As given in the Article 9 of the Regulation, Member States must report to Eurostat on the data sources used, the reasons for the selection of these sources and the effects of the selected data on the quality of the statistics.

Member States compile the requested data following the guidelines and instructions provided by Eurostat. Before data publication, consistency validation checks are performed. 

Furtermore, in order to ensure that the statistical practices used to compile the Dublin data are in compliance with the methodological requirements and that good practices in the field of Dublin and Asylum statistics are being followed, Eurostat organises every two years a dedicated Working Group on Dublin statistics where quality and methodological issues are discussed with the data providers (Member States). Eurostat also undertakes compliance monitoring visits to Member States, during which it reviews and consults the data providers on methodological issues.

A quality survey (questionnaire) is planned to be administered by Eurostat to assess the compliance of the Dublin definitions and concepts.

Under construction

Users of Eurostat Dublin (and Asylum) statistics are:

• various policy DGs in the European Commission, like DG HOME AFFAIRS and European Asylum Support Office for desinging, funding and implementing Asylum related policies in the EU
• the European Parliament
• national authorities (Ministries of Interior, Ministries of Justice, Migration agencies) who use Dublin and Asylum data to monitor or project the development of their national asylum procedures
• the European Migration Network (EMN) which uses the data as a basis for its annual EU- and national-level statistical and analytical reports
• researchers and students conducting analysis and research in the field of asylum
• journalists and international organisations in the area of asylum and migration

Eurostat does not conduct user satisfaction surveys per se. Instead the users satisfaction is monitored on a constant way through informal and formal contacts and communications with users and through requests and comments received by users.

For a few Member States, fully disaggrgegated data may not be available.

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

Data is collected on annual basis (calendar year) and must be transmitted by reporting countries not later than 3 months after the end of the reference period.

Exceptionally for 2014 reference year, the deadline for reporting the Dublin data was exctended to 15th May 2015 (due to new data requirements introduced).

Data are released by Eurostat approximately 2 weeks after reception (given that data are ERROR-FREE).

The punctuality of the data is overall good.

Most of the countries are able to meet the requirements of transmitting the data within the deadlines foreseen in the Regulation.

However, it is often the case that few countries might transmit the data some days/weeks after the deadlilne. Such delays might as well impact on the scheduled timetable of certain publications, like the Statistics Explained article or the annual News Releases. The number of countries which provide delayed data can vary from period to period depending on problems that may arise in the respective national administrative systems.

According to the guidelines, Dublin statistics should refer to persons.

However, due to technical reasons and data availability, some Member States may supply statistics relating to the number of requests.

Not applicable

Asylum statistics collected under Article 4 of the Council Regulation 862/2007 are based on persons, while Dublin statistics may refer to requests in a few cases.

Not applicable

Not available

Not available

Data are revised on a continuous basis according to the most recently updated data provided by the countries.

Administrative data

Annual

Data is transmitted to Eurostat by the NSI, Ministries of the Interior or National immigration Agencies.

Before being loaded in the database, internal consistency of the file is ensured.

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable