“Wir schaffen das!” or “We will do it!” stated former German Chancellor Angela Merkel 9 years in the past, when she proclaimed that Germany and Europe had the capability to grant asylum to folks searching for refuge.
Again then, her phrases supplied hope to tons of of hundreds of Syrian individuals who had been fleeing the nation’s now-13-year-long civil conflict, in the hunt for refuge in Europe.
However right this moment, Merkel’s open-door coverage for asylum seekers, particularly for folks from Syria, has modified in Europe.
Simply days after the autumn of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, international locations throughout the continent – together with Germany, Austria, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Sweden, Denmark and the UK – have all introduced plans to pause asylum purposes for Syrian folks searching for asylum. This consists of each new purposes and people which can be nonetheless being processed.
On Monday, Filippo Grandi, the pinnacle of the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), known as for “persistence and vigilance”. In an announcement, he stated the company is “hoping that developments on the bottom will evolve in a constructive method, permitting voluntary, protected and sustainable returns to lastly happen – with refugees capable of make knowledgeable selections.”
So what’s the rationale behind European international locations freezing asylum purposes from Syria?
What number of Syrians have claimed asylum in Europe?
Because the onset of the Syrian civil conflict in 2011, the United Nations studies, a minimum of 7.4 million Syrians stay internally displaced, with roughly 4.9 million searching for refuge in neighbouring international locations. A further 1.3 million have resettled elsewhere, principally in Europe.
In response to a midyear evaluate launched by the European Union Company for Asylum (EUAA) in September, of a complete 513,000 asylum purposes acquired by EU international locations in 2024, “Syrians continued to lodge by far probably the most purposes within the first half of the yr”. Their asylum claims symbolize 14 % of the entire variety of purposes – an increase of seven proportion factors in comparison with the identical interval in 2023.
The EUAA report additionally highlighted that round 101,000 Syrian asylum purposes are nonetheless pending in EU international locations.
In the meantime within the UK, in response to the nation’s House Workplace, greater than 27,000 folks from Syria have claimed asylum because the onset of the civil conflict, with 90 % of claims being permitted. Nevertheless, 6,502 Syrian asylum claims are nonetheless pending as of September 2024.
What does ‘pausing’ asylum claims imply?
Following the autumn of al-Assad, some EU international locations have introduced a “pause” within the processing of asylum purposes whereas they become familiar with the scenario inside Syria, they are saying.
The 27-member bloc’s overseas leaders will meet later this month to debate a joint response.
Within the UK, which left the EU following the 2016 Brexit referendum, House Secretary Yvette Cooper famous that the scenario in Syria is transferring very quick. “And that’s the reason, like Germany, like France, and like different international locations, we now have paused asylum selections on instances from Syria whereas the House Workplace critiques and displays the present scenario,” she stated.
Bram Frouws, director of Geneva-based suppose tank Combined Migration Centre, informed Al Jazeera that pausing asylum claims “principally means Syrians who’re nonetheless in an asylum course of and awaiting a call can be in limbo for for much longer”.
“Figuring out there are lengthy asylum backlogs in lots of [European] international locations, this provides to the uncertainty for a lot of. It additionally signifies that those that arrive any longer, whereas nonetheless attainable to file an asylum declare, must wait lengthy for a call,” he added.
For now, there isn’t a change in standing for many who have already been granted asylum in European international locations.
Which EU international locations are doing what?
Germany
At the moment in Germany, which has accepted greater than 1,000,000 Syrian refugees, the freeze on the processing of asylum purposes for Syrian folks will have an effect on 47,770 purposes which can be already within the system. The nation has not introduced any plans to start deportations of Syrians.
On Monday, after Germany’s Federal Workplace for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) introduced the choice to pause the method, the chief of Bavaria’s conservative Christian Social Union social gathering, Markus Soder, stated it was “the appropriate choice”.
Austria
In Austria, Inside Minister Gerhard Karner stated that household reunification visa schemes for Syrians – each new purposes and people nonetheless being processed – would even be halted.
Austria has additionally introduced plans to deport Syrian migrants. “I’ve instructed the ministry to organize an orderly return and deportation programme to Syria,” Karner informed Austrian media, though he didn’t specify which individuals, exactly, can be despatched again. About 100,000 Syrians reside in Austria, in response to knowledge from the Austrian authorities.
Denmark
Denmark, which has stated it considers Syria to be “safe” since 2019, has been searching for methods to discourage Syrian asylum seekers for a while. Following the autumn of the regime, it additionally stated it’s suspending 69 asylum instances at present being processed. It added that it’s now additionally planning to start out deporting Syrians, no matter whether or not they have acquired asylum or not.
Norway, Italy and Belgium
Norway, Italy and Belgium have additionally all made bulletins that they’ll droop new claims and pause present claims nonetheless beneath course of.
Frouws famous that circumstances have massively modified with al-Assad’s downfall. His regime was the primary cause to offer safety to Syrians who had fled their nation.
“We’ve got seen celebrations by Syrians overseas, many expressing an intention to return, and we now have truly seen some small-scale return actions from neighbouring Lebanon and Turkey. In that sense, it’s comprehensible international locations are re-assessing the scenario,” Frouws stated.
Nevertheless, the choices being taken to droop asylum claims are “untimely” he stated. “It’s method too early to see how the scenario will evolve … the best way European states tumble over one another to all droop processing asylum claims, and even begin talks about returns of those that have already acquired safety is embarrassing,” Frouws stated.
He stated the choices pointed to a dedication by European international locations to return Syrian refugees to Syria.
“It reveals a sure hypocrisy,” he stated. “Solely days in the past, some states thought it might be OK to return folks to Syria whereas Assad’s regime was nonetheless there. And now that he’s gone, in addition they suppose it’s okay to return folks, which appears to point that irrespective of the circumstances, the purpose is returns.”
Does Europe contemplate Syria ‘protected’, then?
With regards to claiming asylum, the EUAA determines international locations are protected if they don’t generate “safety wants for his or her folks” or are international locations by which “asylum seekers are protected and will not be in peril”.
Nevertheless, the EU at present maintains that Syria shouldn’t be protected for folks to return to.
“In the interim, we keep, according to the UNHCR, the circumstances will not be met for protected, voluntary, dignified returns to Syria,” a European Fee spokesperson informed reporters in Brussels on Monday.
The spokesperson added, nonetheless, that “most Syrians within the diaspora have been dreaming of going again to their nation” and whether or not or to not return needs to be the choice of every household and particular person.
UK Overseas Secretary David Lammy stated quite a bit will depend on what occurs subsequent within the nation and a return of individuals to Syria might additionally “rapidly turn out to be a stream again out and probably improve the numbers utilizing harmful unlawful migration routes to continental Europe and the UK”.
“At the moment of turbulence and alter, international locations ought to keep away from plunging Syrian refugees and other people searching for asylum into conditions of additional uncertainty and precarity,” Eve Geddie, Europe director at Amnesty Worldwide, informed Al Jazeera.
“Consistent with worldwide regulation and requirements on refugee safety, asylum claims should be processed promptly and successfully,” she stated. “European international locations should additionally proceed to think about the person circumstances of every asylum seeker on a case-by-case foundation. They have to instantly reverse selections to droop Syrians’ asylum purposes and reject calls to return Syrians or prohibit household reunification.”
What do Syrian refugees suppose Europe needs to be doing now?
Ahmad Helmi, who hails from Damascus and at present resides within the Netherlands, informed Al Jazeera that he was disillusioned by some EU international locations’ choice to droop asylum claims.
“Their first response ought to have been, ‘How can we help a democratic transition in Syria and set up peace within the nation?’ quite than announce stopping asylum claims,” stated Helmi, who has been granted asylum within the Netherlands.
Helmi turned one of many many victims of “enforced disappearance” in Syria and now runs Ta’afi, an initiative to help and shield victims of enforced disappearance in Syria.
“It has some hypocrisy in it, you realize, as a result of Europe and your entire West have for the previous few many years been lecturing the remainder of the world about democracy, prosperity and the rule of regulation,” he stated. “And now once we introduced down a regime in our nation. We had a number of supporters and a number of other companions from all over the world, after all. Europe solely thinks about stopping migration and asylum as an alternative of searching for democracy.”
“I would like the worldwide group to at present give attention to having contingencies to help Syria based mostly on an precise and significant transitional justice course of,” Helmi stated. “And not using a transitional justice course of, peace is not going to be sustainable.”
