Ukrainian refugee arrivals to Estonia in 2024 a third of previous years
While the asylum approval rate in Estonia remains at around 50 percent, arrivals from Ukraine have fallen significantly this year, the interior ministry reported.
Stricter screening ensures only genuine international students and refugees meet entry criteria, the ministry added.
As for the Ukrainians, around a third of the number seen in recent years have come to Estonia this year.
Janek Mägi, head of the Border Guard and Migration Policy Department at the Ministry of the Interior, said: "When it comes to the general movement of refugees, overall trends, similarly to the rest of Europe, show signs of a fall.
"We tend to look at Ukraine entirely separately, and even then, the movement of Ukrainians [to Estonia] has fallen more than threefold this year," Mägi went on, noting that the figure is in any case subject to fluctuations, and many Ukrainians are also returning to their home country at present.
"Those under the EU's temporary protection directive currently hold 35,000 valid residence permits in Estonia," Mägi, a former government minister, continued.
"This temporary protection is highly dynamic: Many permits have been newly issued, and many extended, but the trends show a decrease. On average, fewer than a hundred people arrive weekly from Ukraine, while several dozen leave weekly as well," he went on, citing some figures.
Other than that, there have been no significant changes in immigration in 2024 compared with the previous two years.
Ukraine aside, most international protection applicants still come from Russia and Belarus, but even from these two countries, the numbers are lower than they had been.
In 2022 and 2023, over 200 Russians nationals had sought international protection in Estonia, dropping to 40 this year, followed by Belarus (10+ arrivals), and 1-2 arrivals each from India, Turkey, Georgia, and Nigeria, Mägi said.
Not all asylum applicants are granted protection, with approval rates historically around 50 percent, though the Ukraine war has increased approvals for Russians and Belarusians, while some are rejected for making false claims about the nation of origin or real threat of persecution.
Stricter screening has resolved previous misuse of Estonian schools for EU entry, ensuring genuine international students can study without security concerns.
Mägi noted a common perception in the media that Estonia does not want international students and for this reason, it has been made deliberately very hard to come here. But in reality, he said, the proof is in the pudding – it is hard to come to Estonia for study because the screening process works.
"There are currently no issues with international students," Mägi concluded.
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Editor: Kai Vare, Mirjam Mäekivi, Andrew Whyte