As European Home Affairs ministers meet in Brussels for their monthly meeting, they face the question of the possible return of Syrians to their home country.
Just days after the fall of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime, countries across Europe are already discussing the possible fate of the thousands of Syrian refugees that have fled to the continent.
Several countries, including Germany, Austria, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Sweden, and Denmark, have already announced they will pause asylum applications for Syrian refugees.
But as European interior ministers meet in Brussels for their monthly meeting, they are still divided on the scenarios for possible returns to Syria.
Magnus Brunner, the European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration says “it’s important to discuss the voluntary return” of Syrians, while also taking time to “await the situation in Syria in the next days” to “gain clarity about how to proceed.”
Austria among hardliners
The Swedish and German interior ministers echoed this attitude, with the German minister, Nancy Faeser, emphasising the important contributions Syrian refugees have made to her country. “We have a lot of doctors from Syria. They are welcome to stay in Germany as long as they respect the laws and work here.”
Faeser’s Austrian counterpart, Gerhard Karner, takes a more hard-line approach. He said on Thursday that “to wait is the wrong approach,” calling to start work on deportations as soon as possible, while referring to “criminals, those who don’t adhere to European and Austrian values, and those who don’t want to work.”
Nine years ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel proclaimed: “Wir schaffen das,” or “we’ll manage”, when her government made the decision to grant asylum to hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing the now 13-year-long civil war.
But now, conservative hardliners are calling for their return. Jens Spahn, deputy chairman of Merkel’s own CDU parliamentary group, has suggested chartering planes and giving Syrians €1,000 to leave the country.
143,000 Syrians received German citizenship between 2021 and 2023, but there are still around 700,000 Syrians classed as various types of asylum seekers.
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