Enab Baladi – Nouran al-Samman
Syrian refugees in Europe find themselves facing increasing challenges posed by political efforts by officials calling for the deportation of refugees based on “safe areas” in Syria, while there is a legal trend that counteracts these efforts.
The latest steps by officials were taken by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on October 15, targeting the general situation of refugees by initiating an investigation into “safe and sustainable voluntary returns” of Syrian refugees to their homeland, according to Politico newspaper.
This came a week after the European Court of Justice took action preventing member states from classifying any area in the world as “safe” unless officially decided by it.
The court stressed that any declaration of a “safe” country must cover all its territory, complicating efforts to deport Syrians.
The ruling by the European Court of Justice was based on policies that some member states, including the Czech Republic, began implementing.
According to The National newspaper, the Czech Republic is considering a fact-finding mission to establish safe areas in Syria.
The ruling of the European Court of Justice is also linked to Cyprus, which has systematically taken a stance to “encourage discussions” about declaring parts of Syria as safe, with the aim of repatriating migrants to those parts of Syria.
Countries such as Austria, Italy, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Greece, Croatia, Slovenia, and Slovakia are adopting this approach.
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer cited the return of 200,000 people crossing the border from Lebanon to Syria, fleeing Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, as evidence that “Syria is safe,” according to Politico, on October 23.
Eva Singer, Director of the Danish Refugee Council’s Asylum Department, considered that attempts to classify Syria as a “safe” country would lead to legal challenges.
She stated, according to Politico, that “even if EU countries decide that Syria is a safe country, it will still be necessary to conduct an individual assessment of the risks each person may face, including the possibility of appealing the decision before an independent body.”
Is Syria safe?
Reports from the United Nations, the European Union, and human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, continue to confirm that Syria remains unsafe for return across its entire territory.
The reports indicate that “refugees are at risk of human rights violations there.”
These violations include arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearance, and the risk of assassination of refugees upon their return to Syria.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) documented in its report that between September 23 and October 2, at least nine Syrian refugees, most of whom are from the Damascus countryside, were arrested on the grounds of “mandatory and reserve conscription.”
Despite rising voices in Europe regarding the possibility of returning refugees to Syria, another perspective remains that continues to affirm that this step, which requires resuming relations with the Syrian regime, entails risks.
This includes the Netherlands’ stance, which rejects supporting any resumption of negotiations with the Syrian regime.
On October 16, it announced that “Syria is not considered safe” and that any future decision regarding the return of refugees depends on a mechanism free from political considerations to determine the safety of the situation in Syria, according to Politico.
What lies behind the contradiction?
A legal expert specialized in human rights, al-Mutassim al-Kilani, believes that the contradiction among European countries regarding how to deal with refugees, especially Syrians, is due to differing internal policies and varying security and political assessments concerning the situation in Syria.
On one hand, some countries adopt more open policies while others enforce stricter positions, according to al-Kilani.
The legal expert clarified to Enab Baladi that the European Court of Justice can curb political calls to classify Syria as a safe country if they contradict European legal principles, thus protecting refugees from forced deportation and providing them with legal guarantees shared among EU countries.
There are legal controls linking EU member states, such as the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Dublin Regulation, which form a unified legal basis that must be adhered to, according to al-Kilani.
He also added that if any country violates these controls, lawsuits can be filed before the European Court of Justice, which can force that state to retract policies that may violate the rights of refugees.
Distribution of Syrians
Syria remains the largest refugee crisis in the world, despite the European Asylum Agency (an official EU agency) releasing a report on October 7 showing a slight decrease in asylum applications in Europe.
Syrians continue to lead in requests for international protection in the European Union.
In 2023, over 180,000 Syrians submitted applications for the first time, compared to 130,000 in the previous year, according to Politico.
In the first six months of 2024, at least 90% of processed Syrian applications were approved during that period, indicating that authorities recognized that they could face serious risks if they returned to their country, as mentioned by the newspaper.
Estimates of the number of Syrians in the European Union vary according to sources and updates. However, according to previous reports, approximately 150,000 people of Syrian origin currently live in the Netherlands. Many of them arrived as refugees between 2014 and 2016.
According to European statistics, in 2023, the number of Syrians in Germany reached 972,000 people.
The German website Welt reported that 739,735 asylum applications were submitted in the EU during the first nine months of the current year.
These figures represent a decrease of 0.8% compared to the same period last year.
According to the website, Germany continues to lead European countries in asylum applications, followed by Spain and Italy.
A third of asylum applications in Germany were submitted by Syrians, according to Welt.
The report indicated that Germany experienced an estimated 24% decrease in asylum applications compared to last year, attributing the reason to recent actions by Greece and Italy concerning the reception of refugees, the signing of new European agreements, and border monitoring operations.