Following the collapse of the Assad régime in Syria, both Austria and Germany have announced the suspension of ongoing asylum procedures for Syrian migrants, with the government in Vienna even drawing up plans for the deportation of thousands of Syrians.
“After the fall of the dictatorship in Syria, the security situation must be reassessed,” said Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer following the news from the Middle Eastern country that the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadist group had toppled President Bashar Al-Assad.
This marks a significant new stage in the European migration crisis: hundreds of thousands of Syrians have sought asylum in Europe in the past decade, many of whom have cited persecution by the Assad regime as a reason for fleeing. European nations may now—understandably—designate Syria as a safe country, which means that many Syrians would have to return home.
As Karl Nehammer emphasised:
Syria needs its fellow citizens now! The fall of the Assad regime is changing the overall situation. This means that a safer home and the possibility of returning to Syria are within reach for thousands of Syrians.
The chancellor said that asylum is given as a means of “temporary protection,” but now that it is safe for many to return home, his government would work hard to facilitate that.
As a first step, Austria has announced that ongoing asylum procedures for Syrian asylum seekers, as well as family reunifications, will be instantly suspended. Second, existing asylum grants will be reassessed. Third, interior minister Gerhard Karner said that 7,300 people could be sent back to Syria in a first round of deportations.
There are currently around 95,000 Syrians with asylum protection living in Austria, and almost 13,000 asylum applications were filed by Syrians during the course of this year.
Authorities in neighbouring Germany, too, have suspended asylum procedures for Syrians, which will affect more than 47,000 pending applications, but the government is wary of starting deportations. Interior minister Nancy Faeser warned that “the situation is still too confusing and volatile” for repatriations to be discussed.
The junior partners in the government, the Greens, who espouse pro-migration policies, also called the debate on deportations “harmful” and “inappropriate,” emphasising that it is “completely unclear” how things will evolve in Syria.
German authorities say they are closely monitoring the developments in Syria and the government in Berlin will judge the Islamist group HTS by the way it will treat ethnic and religious minorities in Syria in the coming weeks, a foreign ministry spokesman said.
Unlike in Austria, where asylum grants will be reassessed, Syrians in Germany who have had their asylum request accepted, will not be bothered for the time being.
There are currently almost a million Syrians living in Germany, and two-thirds of them have either been granted refugee status or subsidiary protection. The others have different types of residence permits, for example through family reunifications.
More than 100,000 Syrians applied for asylum last year, and 72,000 applied by the end of November this year.
According to Die Welt, the question of who could potentially be sent back to Syria may depend on who was granted asylum for being politically persecuted by the Assad regime. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) has stated that it is unable to evaluate how many Syrians cited political persecution as their reason for fleeing.
Apart from Austria and Germany, France said it, too, would put asylum requests from Syrians on hold, with authorities in Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Sweden and Norway announcing similar moves.
