Two graphs that show how many asylum seekers Britain really accepts

UK is behind Bulgaria, Finland and Luxembourg for the number of asylum seekers it accepts, when compared to its own population

A group of migrants make their way through Calais, heading for Britain. France accepts over 20,000 asylum seekers per year, while Britain accepts just over 14,000 (PA)

The United Kingdom granted 14,605 asylum applications in 2014, according to figures from Eurostat, the European Commission's statistics body.

The figures show the number of positive asylum applications to the EU broken down according to member state (excluding Austria).

Taken as a whole, EU member states granted protection to over 185,000 asylum seekers in 2014.

The report puts the UK in fifth place in terms of total positive asylum applications for 2014, behind Germany (47,555 positive applications), Sweden (33,025), France (20,640) and Italy (20,630).

However, these are total figures - they do not take into account relative country size.

When we adjusted the figures to take into account the relative sizes of countries (according to population), the United Kingdom only makes the top 20 of countries accepting the most asylum applications.

Going from 2014 population figures and asylum application numbers, the UK accepted around 218 asylum seekers per 1m population.

Sweden outstrips all other EU member states, accepting around 3,424 asylum seekers per 1m population despite being the 14th most populous country in the group.

Eurostat's figures come amidst plans to be announced today for a migrant quota system across EU member states to deal with the surge of migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Europe.

Home Secretary Theresa May has said that calls for mandatory quotas should be resisted, as relocation of migrants across Europe would only help "criminal gangs to keep plying their evil trade".