Number of refugees in Germany continues to fall

The refugee crisis appears to be drawing to an end in Germany, official figures released on Thursday by the Interior Ministry suggest.

The number of new applications for asylum recorded by German authorities fell to 187,266 between January and October 2017, a 73 percent drop compared to the same period last year (694,000).

The majority of refugees who arrived in Germany by the end of October came from Syria (35,519), Iraq (17,644) and Afghanistan (10,525) and Eritrea (8034).

On a monthly basis, applications for asylum rose slightly in October compared to September to reach 15,170. Notably, a high number of applications were made by Turkish nationals which displaced Afghanistan as the third largest country in the past month.

At the same time, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) lowered the number of outstanding asylum applications from more than 500,000 in 2016 to 87,000 in 2017.

The BAMF has so far settled 546,540 asylum cases of individuals between January and October. 210,937 applications were rejected, while 112,995 persons were recognised as asylum seekers and 90,231 received subsidiary protection. 35,824 individuals were handed a temporary suspension of their deportation.

Immigration and Refugee policy has become a key sticking point in ongoing "Jamaica" coalition negotiations between the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Christian Social Union (CSU), Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the green party (Gruenen).

The CDU and CSU intend to limit the net number of individuals admitted to Germany on humanitarian grounds each year to 200,000. By contrast, the green party and FDP reject such a fixed numerical cap on migration.