Akhir 24, 1432 H/March 29, 2011, SPA -- Ireland and Greece were the European Union countries least likely to grant migrants international protection over the course of 2010, dpa quoted the EU's statistical office as saying Tuesday. Ireland rejected 1,575 asylum requests, equal to 98 per cent of the total, while Greece refused 3,350 out of 3,455, equal to 97 per cent of the total. That compared to an EU average of 75 per cent, Eurostat said. Greece's asylum system broke down at the end of last year amidst an unprecedented influx of migrants entering its borders through Turkey, mostly coming from Afghanistan and North Africa. Since then the EU's executive, the European Commission, has pledged funds and sent experts to help Greek authorities redress the shortcomings. At the other end of the scale, the Netherlands was found to have turned back only 56 per cent of applicants, Denmark 59 per cent and Italy 62 per cent, Eurostat said. The data were published as EU countries are debating how to make good a commitment to standardize asylum procedures throughout the bloc by 2012, in order to minimize wide divergencies in rejection rates from one EU member to another. The waves of migration that have arrived on the EU's southern border in Italy following the unrest in North Africa - mostly made up of economic migrants, but also containing people fleeing from violence - have added a sense of urgency to the deliberations.
