After the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, more than 2 million people sought protection in Europe. As a data analysis shows, the chances of being granted asylum were high. But what happens to these refugees – and Europe’s refugee policy – now that Bashar Assad’s regime has fallen?
Illustration Anja Lemcke / NZZ
The people of Syria had been celebrating the fall of longtime dictator Bashar Assad for barely a day when policymakers in Berlin, Bern, London, Rome and Stockholm announced that they were temporarily suspending asylum procedures for Syrians. Other countries soon followed suit.
Authorities in these countries indicated they were implementing the suspension due to the unclear situation in Syria. The various governments say it is not currently possible to verify whether applicants face danger in their home country. Even shortly before the fall of the dictator, calls to normalize relations with Assad had been growing louder in Italy, Germany and Austria, with the goal of being able to deport refugees. In Switzerland too, the Swiss People’s Party in particular had flirted with the idea of classifying Syria, or at least parts of the country, as safe. This assessment is a prerequisite for being able to resume deportations.
While European politicians from various parties are already considering whether a quick return of Syrians to their home country will be possible, others fear a new uptick in the number of arrivals, much as in 2015.
According to figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, almost 6 million people have fled Syria since 2011 in order to escape the fighting between Islamist rebels and the Assad regime. While more than half of these people found refuge in the neighboring countries of Lebanon, Jordan or Turkey, hundreds of thousands per year moved to Europe in 2015 and 2016 – a experience that continues to shape the migration debate on the continent to this day.
More than 2 million Syrians with refugee status are currently living in Europe. Germany, with around 800,000 refugees, and Austria, with 113,000, have to date taken in the most Syrian refugees – in each case a significant number compared to the size of their populations. By comparison, Switzerland has taken in around 20,000 Syrian refugees so far. This puts the country in 16th place among the countries that have provided refuge to Syrians worldwide.
Most refugees also apply for asylum
Refugee status as defined by the UNHCR is based on the 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention, and allows people to apply for asylum in a state that has signed that agreement. Most Syrians in Europe have done so. More than 1.7 million asylum applications from Syrians have been submitted over the last 11 years.
The number of applications fell sharply after the peak of the refugee inflow in 2015 and 2016. But it has been rising steadily again since 2021. in the partial year through August 2024 – before the fall of Assad – around 112,000 Syrians had applied for asylum in EU or European Free Trade Association states, around 10% more than in the previous year. After Ukraine, Syria is currently the second most common country of origin for people seeking protection in Europe.
Many asylum applications are made in countries on the EU’s external borders, such as Greece, Bulgaria or Cyprus. But many asylum-seekers are not prevented from traveling on to more popular destination countries such as Germany and Austria. In Germany alone, around 100,000 applications were submitted in 2023. In Austria, the figure was 20,000. In Switzerland, only about 1,400 Syrians submitted applications in 2023.
Declining numbers after 2015
The share of Syrian asylum-seekers who have had their applications approved has recently risen again. Since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rate of applications being approved has generally remained above 90%. In 2021, the approval rate briefly fell below 60% – the lowest such figure since the start of the Syrian civil war.
In 2015, around 99% of Syrians seeking asylum in the EU saw their applications approved. But this high point has not been reached again since. In recent years, only Venezuelans who sought protection in Europe after the unrest in 2019 and 2023 briefly saw such a high application-approval rate. However, in the majority of cases, even Syrian applicants wait more than six months before an asylum decision is made.
Among the few thousand Syrian asylum-seekers whose applications have been rejected by European migration authorities in recent years, and who have thus been legally required to leave the continent, few have done so. Only around 1% of Syrians legally obliged to leave Europe have actually done so over the last three years.
It is not clear that the hundreds of thousands of people who have already been granted asylum in Europe will return quickly. Many regions in Syria have been destroyed, and offer returnees no place to live. The UNHCR warned in a recent report that the conditions in Syria «not yet conducive for the facilitation of large-scale voluntary returns in safety and dignity.» Security conditions are by no means stable. Around 90% of people in Syria are living in poverty.
Meanwhile, the new strongman in Damascus, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani, has called on Syrian refugees abroad to return home and help rebuild the country. In the initial euphoria after the fall of Assad’s regime, Syrians have come back in great numbers from neighboring countries. The question is whether they will settle there for the long term.
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Publish date : 2024-12-16 00:57:00
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