There were 580,800 first-time asylum seekers in EU countries in 2018, a drop of 11 percent from the year before, according to figures published by Eurostat on Thursday. The majority of applicants were Syrian, Afghan and Iraqi citizens. In 2017, a total of 654,600 people applied for asylum in EU countries - roughly half of the record-high number of 1,256,600 first-time asylum applicants registered in 2015, at the height of the refugee "crisis" in 2015.