Statistics

Author

JRS Romania

Overview of statistical practice

Detailed statistics are not available in the annual reports published on the website of the General Inspectorate for Immigration (IGI) Directorate for Asylum and Integration (DAI); they were provided based on the official request of the AIDA expert.

Applications and granting of protection status at first instance: figures for 2023 (1)

Regarding data collection, the system managed by the General Inspectorate for Immigration allows for obtaining statistical information based on the following criteria:

• Statistics on applicants and pending concern people including children and dependants;
• Applicants in 2023 refers to the total number of applicants and not only to first-time applicants;
• Total decisions refer to decisions to admit and to reject the asylum applications (the IGI do not uses as criteria in merit rejection/in merit admission);
• Total number of persons who were granted refugee status, subsidiary protection by IGI-DAI;
• “-“ indicates that the authorities did not provide this information.

These numbers present slight divergences with the data presented in Eurostat, which are also provided by the authorities, but these do not lead to any substantial changes. This may be due to correction of data sent to Eurostat, as it is published later than when the expert received the data presented below from the authorities.

Source: Information provided by the General Inspectorate for Immigration, 18 January 2024.

Note 1: statistics on applicants and pending concern people, including children and dependents. The rest of the columns concern number of decisions as that is usually the (only) data available.

Note 2: “Applicants in year” refers to the total number of applicants, and not only to first-time applicants. If data is available only on first-time applicants, specify this in the source.

Note 3: Statistics on decisions cover the decisions taken throughout the year, regardless of whether they concern applications lodged that year or in previous years.

Note 4: Due to lack of disaggregated data, rejections include all rejection decisions, including e.g. inadmissibility decisions.

Applications and granting of protection status at first instance: rates for 2023

The information in the table below is calculated by ECRE on the basis of the raw data provided by the General inspectorate for Immigration presented in the table above.

Gender/age breakdown of the total number of applicants: 2023

Source: Information provided by the General Inspectorate for Immigration, 18 January 2024.

Note: The gender breakdown (Men/Women) applies to all applicants, not only adults.

First instance and appeal decision rates: 2023

The information presented below was provided to the AIDA expert by the Romanian courts. The courts’ statistics were compiled in order to obtain the total number of positive and negative decisions that were issued in 2023. Concerning first appeal decisions, information was provided by Court Baia Mare,^[1] Court Galati,^[2] Court Rădăuţi,^[3] Court Bucharest (district 4),^[4] Court Giurgiu^[5] and Court Timisoara.^[6] For the onward appeal decisions, information was made available by Galati Tribunal,^[7] Maramureș Tribunal,^[8] Suceava Tribunal,^[9] Timis Tribunal,^[10] Bucharest Tribunal^[11] and Giurgiu Tribunal.^[12] These are the courts competent to rule on matters relating to the asylum procedure, complaints made by asylum seekers against IGI decisions.[13] The courts have available data only concerning positive and negative decisions on matters directly linked to granting of refugee status or subsidiary protection. From the responses provided, it results that in 2023 the courts did not have cases on other legal matters. Information on first instance decision making was provided by IGI to the AIDA expert and is presented in more detail in the first table of this section.

It should be noted that, during the same year, the first instance and first and onward appeal authorities handle different caseloads. Thus, the decisions below do not concern the same applicants.

Percentages were calculated by ECRE based on the raw data provided by the national authorities or courts.

Please note that in Romanian legislation, first instance refers to the first court appeal, and appeal refers to the second court decision. The terminology used in this table rather refers to common EU standards, and thus first instance refers to the administrative asylum procedure before the asylum authorities.

^[1] Information provided by the Court Baia Mare, 8 January 2024.

^[2] Information provided by the Court Galati, 3 January 2024.

^[3] Information provided by the Court Rădăuţi, 4 January 2024.

^[4] Information provided by the Court Bucharest district 4, 12 January 2024.

^[5] Information provided by the Court Giurgiu, 28 December 2023.

^[6] Information provided by the Court Timisoara, 05 February 2024.

^[7] Information provided by the Galati Tribunal, 11 January 2024.

^[8] Information provided by the Maramureș Tribunal, 10 January 2024.

^[9] Information provided by the Suceava Tribunal, 12 January 2024.

^[10] Information provided by the Timis Tribunal, 3 January 2024.

^[11] Information provided by the Bucharest Tribunal, 9 January 2024.

^[12] Information provided by the Giurgiu Tribunal, 12 January 2024.

[13] However, since May 2023, when a rejection decision is issued by the GII, a return decision is also issued. If the person wants to file a complaint against the rejection decision, they must also request the suspension of the return decision. In this sense, an appeal is filed against the return decision, the jurisdiction being the Court of Appeals within the territorial scope of the Regional Reception Centre that issued the decision.