During the height of Syria’s civil war, more than 1 million Syrian refugees were welcomed to Germany, now politicians from across the spectrum are weighing how to proceed
The most latent issue in the internal politics of of the last 10 years is immigration. On a continent that was the scene of two world wars and several other regional conflicts, migratory flows caused by wars are not necessarily new, but refugees from the Middle East have become a particularly delicate issue in multiple aspects. As Italians and Greeks migrated to looking for a better life and Poles and Bulgarians fled the Iron Curtain to try their luck in England, the issue of immigration was handled differently, after all, nationals from countries with the same European Christian civilization matrix, adapted more quickly and did not pose major problems to those who received them. However, since the most recent conflicts in the Middle East, an immense flow of refugees and illegal immigrants from Muslim countries, from a civilizational matrix completely opposite to the European one, has brought millions to different countries in Europe, increasing social tensions and causing all ideological lines to rethink their concept of immigration and asylum.
With elections scheduled for February 23rd, all the main German parties know that the European Union’s failed migration policy, especially the German one, will be something demanded by the electorate. Since the hardest days of the civil war in Syria in 2015, the then conservative government of Angela Merkel made the decision to welcome everyone who wanted to come to the country, which resulted in more than a million Syrians settling in Germany in less than 10 years. The former chancellor’s premise was that Germany, in its economic and social potential, would be able to receive and integrate all Syrians. The reality, however, proved to be completely opposite. The policy of integrating refugees from Syria and other Muslim countries did not work for the vast majority of the thousands who arrived, where language courses, technical courses and teaching European customs were unable to prevent the establishment of isolated communities, commonly called ghettos, in addition to the hyperrepresentation of certain ethnic groups within violent and sexual crime statistics. There are obviously a number of Syrians and other refugees who have managed to integrate well and contribute to the society of the country that welcomed them, but with more and more studies being released by governments and European organizations, such data appears to be statistically negligible compared to the damage caused.
In 2015, by declaring the Assad dictatorship a human rights violator and granting asylum to all arrivals, Germany and other nations pledged to welcome all those claiming to flee Syria. Today, without Assad in power and with a transitional government, many claim that the legal reasons for granting asylum no longer exist, which would force the migration system to reevaluate thousands of cases. Within the 6 major German political parties there are different views on how to proceed with Syrians still without a defined status. On the streets of multiple German cities, Syrians wave the flag of the resistance forces of their country of origin and celebrate the fall of Assad, which made the most right-wing wings defend the immediate return of these immigrants and refugees to Syria. Bavaria’s conservative leader, Markus Söder, says that “if the reason for asylum disappears, then there is no longer any legal basis for them to stay in the country”, a view shared by parliamentarians from the far right, right and also the left. On the government side, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock of the Green Party responded that “anyone who wants to use the current situation in Syria for their own political purpose has completely lost sight of the reality of the Middle East”, claiming that only in the coming months will know whether Syria will in fact be a safe country for such individuals to return.
Of all the hundreds of thousands of Syrians who arrived in Germany since 2015, around 143,000 have already obtained German citizenship, but more than 700,000 are still classified in various categories of refugees and asylum seekers, of which 50,000 are still waiting. of a response. Since the fall of Assad, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees has halted all analyzes involving individuals from Syria, arguing that they are monitoring the development of the situation in the country to resume case evaluations and decisions. Obviously, with the German elections knocking on the door, this institution is also waiting for the political definition within Germany itself, so as not to have to do the same work twice or spend already limited resources on an analysis that could be discarded during the next government. In fact, the Germans, like many other European governments, overestimated their capabilities to integrate Syrians, as well as underestimating the number of people who would actually come to Europe. Almost a decade later, there are less than half a dozen countries that have succeeded in their migration policies, while well over a dozen are suffering failures from a decision that changed their great cities and their nations forever. Whatever the path taken by post-Assad Syria, or the decision of the Germans at the polls in February, the way asylum is granted and migration policy in Europe urgently needs a change.
*This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Jovem Pan.
*This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Jovem Pan.
