From January 1 to July 31 of this year, Germany received 70,011 asylum applications, which is 50 percent less compared to the same period last year, when 140,173 applications were registered, German media report, referring to data from the Ministry of Interior.
German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (from the Christian Social Union, CSU) said that the decrease in the number of asylum applications is a result of the continued refusal of entry at the border for people without regular documentation to enter Germany.
These measures were imposed by the Christian Social Democratic government under Chancellor Friedrich Merz, immediately after coming to power in early May, zeit.de reports.
Dobrindt also announced the reaching of an agreement at the European Union level to further reduce irregular entries into the EU.
“We aim for asylum applications to be processed at the EU’s external borders, through faster procedures and with strict enforcement of deportations,” he told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
According to the border police, since the entry into force of the measure to refuse entry to persons without visas, a total of 9,506 people have been returned from the borders to neighboring countries – Austria, Poland, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Poland protested this decision by the German government and in early July imposed temporary border controls on entries from Germany. These controls have been extended until early October.