“The civil war in Syria is over. There are now absolutely no grounds for asylum in Germany, and therefore we can begin deportations,” Chancellor Merz said on Monday evening, according to Die Welt.
The longstanding open borders policy pushed by the Berlin establishment, particularly under the government of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, which opened the gates of Europe to mass migration in 2015, has incentivised nearly a million Syrians to migrate to Germany.
Their presence in the country has become increasingly controversial in the wake of terror attacks committed by supposed asylum seekers from Syria, such as the mass stabbing at a “diversity festival” in Solingen last year that left three dead and six injured.
Syrians are also vastly overrepresented in crime, with the government admitting earlier this year that Syrian migrants are over five times as likely to be suspects in crimes as people born in Germany, with a rate of 10,587 suspects per 100,000 people for Syrian nationals compared to 1,879 for German nationals.
Amid increasing public pressure to ramp up deportations and the rise of the anti-mass migration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Chancellor Merz has pledged to begin removing migrants, even to countries such as Afghanistan and Syria. Merz said Monday that the government will seek to incentivise voluntary returns. But he added, “And those who then refuse to return from Germany, we can, of course, deport them in the near future.”
However, cracks are already appearing to break out over the policy within Merz’s neoliberal/leftist coalition government, which he formed earlier this year by siding with the election-losing Social Democrats rather than working with the AfD.
Indeed, the government’s own Foreign Minister, Johann Wadephul, has been openly sceptical about any significant number of Syrians returning to their homeland from Germany. During a visit to Syria over the weekend, Wadephul said that returning migrants to the country would only be possible on a “very limited” basis at present due to the fact that “a great deal of infrastructure” had been destroyed during the war.
On Tuesday, Wadephul attempted to claim that there was no daylight between his and the Chancellor’s position, and that he would be “actively involved” in the effort to increase deportations to Syria, starting with criminals and terrorists. Yet, the Foreign Minister also reiterated his opinion that, due to the destruction, it would be “difficult to restore a life of dignity there” for returning migrants.
The mixed messaging has drawn rebuke from Merz party insiders, with one foreign policy expert quoted by Die Welt as saying: “The minister expresses himself imprecisely, there’s a lot of commotion, then nothing happens for several days, and there’s no other plan than to wait it out.”
Another took aim at the Chancellor himself, saying that Merz is responsible for crafting a coherent message for his government, but nothing is happening. And when the damage is done, everyone remains silent, including the Chancellor.”
Green Party Bundestag leader Katharina Dröge added: “Whenever the Foreign Minister speaks out, it’s questioned by his own party members.”
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