“Wir schaffen das!” or “We can do it!” said former German Chancellor Angela Merkel nine years ago, when she proclaimed that Germany and Europe had the capacity to grant asylum to people seeking refuge.
Back then, her words offered hope to hundreds of thousands of Syrian people who were fleeing the country’s now-13-year-long civil war, in search of refuge in Europe.
But today, Merkel’s open-door policy for asylum seekers, especially for people from Syria, has changed in Europe.
Just days after the fall of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, countries across the continent – including Germany, Austria, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Sweden, Denmark and the United Kingdom – have all announced plans to pause asylum applications for Syrian people seeking asylum. This includes both new applications and those that are still being processed.
On Monday, Filippo Grandi, the head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), called for “patience and vigilance”. In a statement, he said the agency is “hoping that developments on the ground will evolve in a positive manner, allowing voluntary, safe and sustainable returns to finally occur – with refugees able to make informed decisions.”
So what is the rationale behind European countries freezing asylum applications from Syria?
How many Syrians have claimed asylum in Europe?
Since the onset of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the United Nations reports, at least 7.4 million Syrians remain internally displaced, with approximately 4.9 million seeking refuge in neighbouring countries. An additional 1.3 million have resettled elsewhere, mostly in Europe.
According to a midyear review released by the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) in September, of a total 513,000 asylum applications received by EU countries in 2024, “Syrians continued to lodge by far the most applications in the first half of the year”. Their asylum claims represent 14 percent of the total number of applications – a rise of seven percentage points compared to the same period in 2023.
The EUAA report also highlighted that around 101,000 Syrian asylum applications are still pending in EU countries.
Meanwhile in the UK, according to the country’s Home Office, more than 27,000 people from Syria have claimed asylum since the onset of the civil war, with 90 percent of claims being approved. However, 6,502 Syrian asylum claims are still pending as of September 2024.
What does ‘pausing’ asylum claims mean?
Following the fall of al-Assad, some EU countries have announced a “pause” in the processing of asylum applications while they get to grips with the situation inside Syria, they say.
The 27-member bloc’s foreign leaders will meet later this month to discuss a joint response.
In the UK, which left the EU following the 2016 Brexit referendum, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper noted that the situation in Syria is moving very fast. “And that is why, like Germany, like France, and like other countries, we have paused asylum decisions on cases from Syria while the Home Office reviews and monitors the current situation,” she said.
Bram Frouws, director of Geneva-based think tank Mixed Migration Centre, told Al Jazeera that pausing asylum claims “basically means Syrians who are still in an asylum process and awaiting a decision will be in limbo for much longer”.
“Knowing there are long asylum backlogs in many [European] countries, this adds to the uncertainty for many. It also means that those who arrive from now on, while still possible to file an asylum claim, will have to wait long for a decision,” he added.
For now, there is no change in status for those who have already been granted asylum in European countries.
Which EU countries are doing what?
Germany
Currently in Germany, which has accepted more than a million Syrian refugees, the freeze on the processing of asylum applications for Syrian people will affect 47,770 applications that are already in the system. The country has not announced any plans to begin deportations of Syrians.
On Monday, after Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) announced the decision to pause the process, the leader of Bavaria’s conservative Christian Social Union party, Markus Soder, said it was “the right decision”.
Austria
In Austria, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said that family reunification visa schemes for Syrians – both new applications and those still being processed – would also be halted.
Austria has also announced plans to deport Syrian migrants. “I have instructed the ministry to prepare an orderly return and deportation programme to Syria,” Karner told Austrian media, although he did not specify which people, precisely, would be sent back. About 100,000 Syrians live in Austria, according to data from the Austrian government.
Denmark
Denmark, which has said it considers Syria to be “safe” since 2019, has been seeking ways to deter Syrian asylum seekers for some time. Following the fall of the regime, it also said it is suspending 69 asylum cases currently being processed. It added that it is now also planning to start deporting Syrians, regardless of whether they have received asylum or not.
Norway, Italy and Belgium
Norway, Italy and Belgium have also all made announcements that they will suspend new claims and pause existing claims still under process.
Frouws noted that circumstances have massively changed with al-Assad’s downfall. His regime was the main reason to provide protection to Syrians who had fled their country.
“We have seen celebrations by Syrians abroad, many expressing an intention to return, and we have actually seen some small-scale return movements from neighbouring Lebanon and Turkey. In that sense, it is understandable countries are re-assessing the situation,” Frouws said.
However, the decisions being taken to suspend asylum claims are “premature” he said. “It is way too early to see how the situation will evolve … the way European states tumble over each other to all suspend processing asylum claims, or even start talks about returns of those who have already received protection is embarrassing,” Frouws said.
He said the decisions pointed to a determination by European countries to return Syrian refugees to Syria.
“It shows a certain hypocrisy,” he said. “Only days ago, some states thought it would be OK to return people to Syria while Assad’s regime was still there. And now that he’s gone, they also think it’s okay to return people, which seems to indicate that no matter the circumstances, the goal is returns.”
Does Europe consider Syria ‘safe’, then?
When it comes to claiming asylum, the EUAA determines countries are safe if they do not generate “protection needs for their people” or are countries in which “asylum seekers are protected and are not in danger”.
However, the EU currently maintains that Syria is not safe for people to return to.
“For the time being, we maintain, in line with the UNHCR, the conditions are not met for safe, voluntary, dignified returns to Syria,” a European Commission spokesperson told reporters in Brussels on Monday.
The spokesperson added, however, that “most Syrians in the diaspora have been dreaming of going back to their country” and whether or not to return should be the decision of each family and individual.
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said a lot depends on what happens next in the country and a return of people to Syria could also “quickly become a flow back out and potentially increase the numbers using dangerous illegal migration routes to continental Europe and the United Kingdom”.
“At this time of turbulence and change, countries should avoid plunging Syrian refugees and people seeking asylum into situations of further uncertainty and precarity,” Eve Geddie, Europe director at Amnesty International, told Al Jazeera.
“In line with international law and standards on refugee protection, asylum claims must be processed promptly and effectively,” she said. “European countries must also continue to consider the individual circumstances of each asylum seeker on a case-by-case basis. They must immediately reverse decisions to suspend Syrians’ asylum applications and reject calls to return Syrians or restrict family reunification.”
What do Syrian refugees think Europe should be doing now?
Ahmad Helmi, who hails from Damascus and currently resides in the Netherlands, told Al Jazeera that he was disappointed by some EU countries’ decision to suspend asylum claims.
“Their first reaction should have been, ‘How can we support a democratic transition in Syria and establish peace in the country?’ rather than announce stopping asylum claims,” said Helmi, who has been granted asylum in the Netherlands.
Helmi became one of the many victims of “enforced disappearance” in Syria and now runs Ta’afi, an initiative to support and protect victims of enforced disappearance in Syria.
“It has some hypocrisy in it, you know, because Europe and the entire West have for the past few decades been lecturing the rest of the world about democracy, prosperity and the rule of law,” he said. “And now when we brought down a regime in our country. We had several supporters and several partners from around the world, of course. Europe only thinks about stopping migration and asylum instead of seeking democracy.”
“I want the international community to currently focus on having contingencies to support Syria based on an actual and meaningful transitional justice process,” Helmi said. “Without a transitional justice process, peace will not be sustainable.”