Irregular migration flows to Europe have increased over the past few years. Since the early 2000s, Malta has received a steady flow of irregular migrants and asylum seekers, many of whom leave from Libyan shores onboard rickety boats. But applications for international protection are also submitted by persons who do not necessarily arrive by boat. In 2020, the International Protection Agency received 2419 applications for international protection and issued decisions on 2030 applications. 76 persons were recognized as refugees, and 192 were granted subsidiary protection. 528 applications were considered to be inadmissible because another Member State is responsible for examining their application according to the Dublin Regulation, while 196 applications were deemed inadmissible according to law. 172 of the inadmissible decisions were issued because the applicant is already benefiting from international protection granted by another Member State. Other types of decisions were also issued, such withdrawals of applications and international protection, and exclusion decisions. A total of 409 applications were rejected after it was determined that the applicants were not in need of international protection.
The CEO for the International Protection Agency, Dr Roberta Buhagiar, highlighted some of the Agency’s achievements over the past year after a rigorous agenda was set to implement the necessary changes:
“Over the past year or so, we have been actively working to introduce improvements to the national asylum procedure. We have adopted a new Code of Conduct for all staff at the Agency, improved decision-making processes and the overall quality of the asylum procedure, introduced improvements to specific procedures, and have begun a process of adopting internal guidelines on various issues to further ensure consistency in decision-making. And despite the operational challenges we faced due to COVID-19 and the number of applications received in recent years, we still managed to implement a fast-track procedure for the most vulnerable applicants”.
