The EU+ received approximately 332,000 applications for international protection in the first half of 2026, 17% fewer than during the same period in 2025, according to the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA). Afghans filed roughly 39,000 applications, while Venezuelans filed about 33,000; 93% of Venezuelan applications were lodged in Spain. The overall first-instance recognition rate stood at 31%.

Those figures coincide with the application, from 12 June 2026, of the new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum. Regulation (EU) 2024/1348 on asylum procedures introduces an important screening rule: in defined circumstances, applicants from nationalities with an EU-wide recognition rate of 20% or lower can be channelled into accelerated examination and, where the legal conditions are met, a mandatory border procedure.

A procedural threshold is not a finding on the merits

Article 42 of Regulation 2024/1348 uses the 20% benchmark as a procedural trigger. That distinction matters. A government may process a claim more quickly because of the applicant’s nationality, but the authority must still assess whether the individual applicant qualifies for refugee status or subsidiary protection.

The Regulation itself recognises that national averages can be misleading. The 20% benchmark need not be treated as representative where there has been a significant change in the country of origin or where the applicant belongs to a category for which the overall recognition rate does not accurately reflect protection needs.

Why this safeguard matters for LGBTQ+ applicants

Regulation (EU) 2024/1347 requires an individual assessment of relevant personal circumstances and expressly recognises factors such as gender, gender identity and sexual orientation. Those characteristics may also be relevant when assessing membership of a particular social group.

An LGBTQ+ applicant therefore cannot be reduced to a country average. A transgender person, an openly gay activist or a person previously targeted by family, police, armed groups or political actors may face a risk profile that is dramatically different from that of the general population.

Venezuela shows why the numbers require context

The EUAA reported an EU-level recognition rate of roughly 2% for Venezuelans in 2025. Yet the Agency also notes that Spain granted national forms of protection to many Venezuelans who did not receive refugee status or subsidiary protection. Those national permits are not counted as positive international-protection decisions in the EU recognition-rate statistic.

That creates an important analytical caution: a 2% recognition rate does not necessarily mean that 98% of Venezuelan applicants were simply deemed safe to return. It measures a narrower legal category.

Zackary Elías Morales: speed must not replace legal scrutiny

For Zackary Oriel Elías Morales, a trans rights activist, Director of Asociación Silueta X and human-rights advocate, the new framework makes one distinction especially important: procedural speed and substantive protection are not the same thing. A state may organise a faster procedure, but it cannot lawfully replace an individual protection assessment with a nationality-wide probability.

For LGBTQ+ claims, the file should connect the applicant’s identity and personal history to concrete evidence: threats, assaults, discrimination of sufficient severity, state inaction, police abuse, political or community persecution, and current country-of-origin information.

Non-refoulement remains a legal boundary

The principle of non-refoulement remains central. Article 33 of the 1951 Refugee Convention prohibits returning a refugee to a territory where their life or freedom would be threatened on a protected ground. Article 19 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights also prohibits removal, expulsion or extradition where there is a serious risk of the death penalty, torture, or inhuman or degrading treatment.

Accelerated procedures do not erase those guarantees. The asylum authority must still conduct an objective, impartial and individual examination.