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Some European countries announced on Monday they are suspending asylum seeker applications from Syrian refugees after the toppling of former president Bashar Al Assad at the weekend.
The UK, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Italy and Greece have already implemented the suspension, with France due to make a decision in the coming hours, its Interior Ministry said.
Germany
Germany took the decision to pause asylum requests from Syrians amid the “unclear situation”, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said.
Germany took in almost one million Syrians, Europe's biggest diaspora from the ravaged country, with most arriving in 2015-16 under ex-chancellor Angela Merkel.
Ms Faeser said that “the end of the brutal tyranny of the Syrian dictator Assad is a great relief for many people who have suffered from torture, murder and terror”.
“Many refugees who have found protection in Germany now finally have hope of returning to their Syrian homeland and rebuilding their country,” she said in a statement.
But Ms Faeser cautioned that “the situation in Syria is currently very unclear”.
“Therefore, concrete possibilities of return cannot yet be predicted at the moment and it would be unprofessional to speculate about them in such a volatile situation."
She said, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees had imposed a freeze on decisions for asylum procedures that are still ongoing “until the situation is clearer”.
The Interior Ministry says 974,136 people with Syrian nationality were living in Germany and more than 47,000 applications are pending.
Britain
The UK has paused decisions on Syrian asylum claims due to the uncertainty after the collapse of the Assad regime.
“The Home Office has paused decisions on Syrian asylum claims while we assess the current situation,” a spokesman said.
“We keep all country guidance relating to asylum claims under constant review so we can respond to emerging issues.”
By the end of February 2021, more than 20,000 Syrian refugees had been resettled under a UK government scheme, according to the Refugee Council.
Austria
As well as stopping asylum applications from Syrians, Austria on Monday went one step further, saying it wanted to deport refugees back to Syria. About 100,000 Syrians live in Austria, one of the biggest diaspora populations in Europe.
Since 2015, some 87,000 Syrians have been given asylum and 7,300 people whose asylum applications are in the first stage of consideration are now being affected.
Conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Monday instructed the Interior Ministry “to suspend all ongoing Syrian asylum applications and to review all asylum grants", the ministry said in a statement.
“From now on, open [asylum] proceedings of Syrian citizens will be stopped,” it said.
Interior Minister Gerhard Karner added he has “instructed the ministry to prepare an orderly repatriation and deportation programme to Syria”.
Family reunification – allowing Syrians in Austria to bring relatives to the country – will also be suspended, the statement added.
“The political situation in Syria has changed fundamentally and, above all, rapidly in recent days,” the ministry said, adding it is “monitoring and analysing the new situation”.
The ministry said that “it is essential to reassess the situation, which is necessary for further processing of the cases”.
Sweden
Sweden's Migration Agency said it will also pause decisions on Syrian asylum cases, saying that it isn't possible at present to assess applicants' reasons for seeking protection.
“Given the situation, it is simply not possible to assess the grounds for protection at this time,” Carl Bexelius, Swedish Migration Agency head of legal affairs, said in a statement.
The agency said that it would formally announce on Tuesday that no rejection of asylum requests or deportation decisions would be enforced during the suspension. Similarly, no decision on residence permits would be made.
Sweden took in the second-highest number of Syrian refugees in the European Union in 2015-2016 behind Germany, and the highest number per capita.
Of the 162,877 asylum seekers in Sweden in 2015, 51,338 were from Syria, according to Statistics Sweden.
“The situation in Syria is fragile and recent events raise several legal questions that require thorough analysis,” Mr Bexelius said, noting that a similar decision had been taken when the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in 2021.
Finland
In Finland, the director of the Department for International Protection at the Finnish Immigration Service, Antti Lehtinen, told public broadcaster YLE that decisions have been suspended there, and he could not immediately estimate when they will resume.
Norway
In Norway, the Directorate of Immigration announced a similar decision, saying that it has put asylum applications from Syria on hold “until further notice”.
Norwegian immigration authorities said Syrians' asylum applications would neither be denied nor approved for now.
Denmark
Denmark also paused processing applications and said Syrians whose applications had already been rejected and who had been given a deadline to leave would be allowed to remain longer due to the current uncertainty.
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Italy
Italy's government on Monday also said it would suspend asylum applications from Syria.
"The government decided, similarly to other European partners, to suspend proceedings on asylum applications from Syria," the statement said after a meeting between Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and some ministers on Syria.
Greece
Greece paused the asylum applications of about 9,000 Syrians, a senior Greek government source told Reuters.
Many of the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees who have settled in the EU since fleeing the civil war that erupted in 2011, have passed through Greece on their way to other countries.
Greece hopes the fall of Mr Al Assad will encourage Syrian refugees in Europe to return home “in total safety”, the government spokesman said on Monday. Pavlos Marinakis told journalists that the fall of the Assad regime should lead to “peace in the country and a harmonious transition of power to a legitimate democratic government”.
Such a democratic transition “should open the return path in total safety back to their homes for Syrian refugees”, he said. That should “mark the end of the flux of refugees from this country”, Mr Marinakis said.
