EU Commission to appoint special envoy to Syria amid push for refugee returns

The EU Commission said on Monday that it is working to appoint a special envoy for Syria amid a push by at least eight member states to possibly re-engage with the country to encourage the return of refugees.

"I can confirm that the HRVP (Josep Borrell) is currently considering a special envoy for Syria," the EU Commission spokeswoman for foreign affairs and security policy, Nabila Massrali, said at a press briefing. Ms Massrali declined to comment further, saying it was "an ongoing process".

The announcement comes a little over one week after Syria was discussed at a meeting of EU leaders during which the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni held separate talks with a number of like-minded heads of state to urge for more refugee returns to their home countries. Italy has been pushing the EU to review its policy on Syria, driven by growing frustration over its unresolved 13-year long civil war, which has claimed more than 500,000 lives and displaced over 12 million people.

The EU Commission – the bloc's executive arm – is considering how to "adjust [its] operational parameters" to increase investment in Syria and encourage voluntary returns of Syrians to their home country, according to the news website Politico, quoting an internal document. It rules out normalising ties with President Bashar Al Assad – diplomatic relations were cut at the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

"Stepping up contacts on the ground"

Calls for so-called voluntary returns have been growing in European capitals despite the UNHCR repeatedly saying that no area in Syria is safe for return. Though fighting has died down, the country remains unstable, with roughly one-third of its territory outside of the government's control.

There has been talk in the past months of a Prague-led fact-finding mission to establish safe zones in Syria but that has been put on hold due to the escalating violence in the region. Cyprus had expressed interest in joining the mission. Other countries involved in pushing the EU Commission to re-evaluate its position on Syria include Greece, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and Slovakia.

“Changing circumstances and some of the actions envisaged might require stepping up contacts on the ground,” says the informal document quoted by Politico.

In a separate informal document written in July, the eight EU countries suggested that the nomination of a special envoy for Syria could serve as a "focal point" for contacts with countries in the Middle East, including in the Gulf, as well as with the UN, the UK and the US. "Being mandated to meet all parties the Envoy would help reducing the impression of an EU internal division where some countries engage with Damascus and others remain totally opposed," they wrote in the document, which was seen by The National.

Kelly Petillo, programme manager for the Middle East and North Africa at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the EU would want the special envoy to work on creating wider consensus from this initial push.

"There is a necessity to move on this front right now because of the deteriorating situation in the region, which is becoming increasingly unsustainable. There is a growing sense that things cannot just be left to slowly brew in the background," Ms Petillo told The National.

The EU currently has 10 special envoys. The latest appointment was Luigi Di Maio, special representative for the Gulf, in June 2023.

The latest UN Syrian refugee survey shows that only about 1 per cent of respondents said they intended to return to Syria in the next year. Returnees are at risk of arbitrary detention or forced conscription. The country is also suffering from a crippling economic crisis. More than 90 per cent of the population lives under the poverty line.

Israel's recent military campaign against Lebanon has caused a fresh wave of displacement among Syrians who had fled to Lebanon over the past decade. More than 250,000 people, including 70 per cent of Syrians, have crossed from Lebanon into Syria to escape Israeli bombs in the past weeks, according to the UN.