The decrease in the number of asylum applications in the European Union is not relieving pressure on the national reception systems because of a still high number of pending procedures. According to the figures issued by Eurostat, in February 2026, the people who had applied for international protection in EU countries for the first time amounted to 46,420 (-21% compared to 2025, -9% compared to January) plus 9,080 applicants who had resubmitted their applications after a previous decision (+12% year on year). Venezuela still stands as the applicants’ first country of origin with 6,835 applications, followed by Afghanistan (4,325), Bangladesh (3,450) and Egypt (1,815). Reception is still concentrated in the hands of few member states: all together, Italy (10,560 applications), Spain (10,410), France (7,900) and Germany (6,985) take up 77% of first applications. Compared with the population, the greatest pressure is reported in Greece (34.3 applicants per 100 thousand people), followed by Spain and Ireland. Extremely noteworthy is the number of unaccompanied children, 1,015 in February alone: most of them come from Somalia, Venezuela and Afghanistan, and most of them submit their applications in Germany, Spain and France. Despite the decrease in the number of new applications, the European asylum system still has criticalities. By late February, 1.20 million applications were still pending a decision, with Germany reporting the highest number of pending procedures (over 291 thousand), followed by Spain and Italy.