The news of the sudden and unexpected demise of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria has met a mixed response in Europe. The jubilation that a murderous dictator and close ally of Russia and Iran has fallen is not just good for the Syrian people but serves as a morale booster for Eastern Europeans wondering whether Russia can be defeated. And Russia’s inability to aid Syria shows that support for Ukraine has not been in vain but has seriously weakened Russia’s military capacity.
Yet, there is still the question of what comes next. There is a non-zero chance that the rebels, being made up of a hodge-podge of groups with different objectives and benefactors who are often at odds, will tear each other into pieces.
For Europe, regardless of the outcome, this development poses a dilemma. More than 1.3 million asylum seekers, most fleeing the Syrian civil war, arrived in the European Union in 2015, numbers not seen since World War II. The following year, another 1.2 million people made the treacherous crossing over the Mediterranean Sea. Not all of them were Syrian; many from other countries took advantage of the chaos to make their way to Europe. And even many Syrians did not have valid reasons to claim asylum.
European leaders are fearing a repeat. In 2016, the EU made a deal to compensate Turkey for enforcing border security on Turkey’s side of the border and prevent those migrants from making their way to Europe. Today, 3 million Syrians live in Turkey, but Turkish authorities appear weary of this arrangement. The Turkish regime has regularly expelled refugees, and now it is opening its border gates to Syria to allow the “safe and voluntary” return of refugees.
It remains to be seen whether this return will indeed be voluntary. While some Syrian refugees are eager to return, even queuing outside the gates, others will be less keen. If Turkey forces these refugees out, and if Syria were to descend into chaos, the prospect of another refugee wave looms large. Refugee smugglers have found new routes into Europe since last time, as evidenced by gradually rising numbers of asylum seekers. Last year, 1.1 million (non-Ukrainian) asylum seekers made their way to the EU, and this year’s numbers look set to be similar.
During the last refugee crisis, asylum seekers hiked through Europe to get to Germany and Sweden, two countries famous for lax immigration rules and generous social safety nets, instead of applying for asylum in any country they passed on the way.
To combat future refugee crises, and to prevent this from happening, the EU recently implemented a migration pact that includes an agreement between EU member states to distribute asylum seekers fairly so that Sweden, Germany, and a few other members do not have to carry almost the entire burden as in 2015. Countries that do not wish to receive their “quota” can instead pay compensation to those who do. In practice though, the migration pact is not battle-ready, and we are still in the two-year transition period before it is supposed to be. There is no enforcement mechanism to ensure that asylum seekers stay in the country that is “supposed” to host them.
Those countries that are popular destinations for asylum seekers could of course round them up and put them on buses taking them to the countries where they, according to the migration pact, are supposed to go. Critics, however, ask why asylum seekers who’ve already been rounded up can’t be returned to their home countries.
But the real flaw with the migration pact is that redirecting asylum seekers to countries that have previously not accepted any will not solve Sweden or Germany’s existing immigration problems. It will merely export these problems to those European countries that have so far been spared.
The timing could not be worse, with Germany heading to the polls in just over two months after its big-tent coalition government collapsed. The same has happened in France, though no elections can be held for another six months for legal reasons. Both countries have strong populist, anti-immigration parties that would almost certainly make serious gains from another 2015-16 style debacle.
Immediately after the fall of Damascus, multiple European countries—including Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom—decided to pause all proceedings for Syrian asylum applicants. This does not mean that these applications will be rejected, but rather that they won’t be processed until authorities have reassessed the situation in Syria.
However, these applications largely should be rejected, and Europe should do its utmost to repatriate Syrian refugees. And not just for Europe’s benefit. Syria needs its people back.
There are many questions about the stability of the new regime, and whether it could become as oppressive as Assad’s. These questions are impossible to answer, but the likelihood of a stable Syria decreases dramatically if those who have emigrated since the civil war began do not return. The refugees include the youngest and most educated Syrians, whereas those left behind are disproportionately those who were too poor or too weak to make the journey.
For historical context, hundreds of thousands of Rwandans—including many who had lived abroad for years before the genocide—returned home to help rebuild after civil war ended in 1994, bringing with them the skills and knowledge that they had acquired abroad. This undoubtedly contributed to Rwanda’s post-genocide growth and stability.
Europe has an opportunity to cut a deal with the new Syrian government in which Syria will receive foreign aid, with some of that aid earmarked to help repatriated Syrians resettle.
Second, while one sticking point for Europeans has been that Middle Eastern immigrants insufficiently adapt to Western culture, the truth is that the refugees are more “Westernized” than the average person in Syria. An influx of Syrians returning from a few years in the West can only help Syria move closer to the West politically and culturally.
Finally, for the sake of reestablishing norms, it’s important to treat asylum as it was intended—mainly as a temporary protection, granted until the danger has passed.
Some may say it’s too soon to consider repatriation and that Syria may yet collapse into a civil war between different rebel factions. This is, of course, true. But the EU has an opportunity to right a mistake it made in 2015 by working only with Turkey.
The agreement with the Turks was necessary but also inadequate. A dozen agreements with a dozen countries to open up refugee camps, paid for by the EU, would have allowed the EU to do its part to care for those affected by the war while at the same time not endangering its own safety and cohesion. Given the potential for a reignited civil war and subsequent influx of new refugees, the EU should make emergency plans to redirect migrants to safe nations closer to where they came from.
There are reasons for some groups now in Europe to stay permanently, or at least until there is a better idea of the kind of government that will replace Assad’s. Minorities such as Christians, Druze, and Yazidis may not yet be safe even in this new Syria. But for those who left at least ostensibly because of the civil war and Assad’s terror reign, the time to return has come.
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