EU migration chief says Syria not stable enough for mass deportations

The situation in Syria has not improved enough for European Union countries to start sending large amounts of Syrians who sought refuge in the EU back to their home country, the EU migration commissioner, Magnus Brunner told dpa in an interview.

"We are not yet at a point where Syria is stable enough for us to carry out large-scale deportations," Magnus Brunner told dpa.

The country "is not yet a safe country of origin according to EU rules. We are providing support to improve the situation and change that."

With the exception of criminals, the initial focus is therefore on voluntary return to the civil war-torn country.

However Brunner said that the EU's "asylum agency has told us that the situation in Syria is improving."

The EU border protection agency Frontex has therefore already supported the voluntary return of thousands of Syrians.

Over 940,000 Syrians in Germany

Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, a member of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, drew heavy criticism within the party in October after he expressed doubts, during a trip to Syria, about large numbers of Syrians voluntarily returning.

The CDU's Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) had declared in a parliamentary resolution paper that most Syrians with a temporary right of residence would no longer have grounds for protection once the civil war in the country had ended and there must be a deportation offensive.

The Syrian civil war, which broke out in 2011, ended in December 2024 after the then rebel leader, now Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa and his forces ousted the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.