Source: European Parliament
Question for written answer E-001240/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Petra Steger (PfE)
On 5 March 2025, the Justice and Home Affairs Council announced that Syrian asylum seekers living in the EU would be able to visit their country of origin without losing their protection status. The Commissioner for Migration, Magnus Brunner, also confirmed the intention to implement this proposal, but without pushing for returns to Syria at the same time. The EU faces a contradiction here: holidays back home are considered safe and should be made possible, while deportations are supposedly too dangerous. This provision threatens to devalue the refugee status and could thus become a pull factor for further migration to the EU. There is also a risk of radicalised people moving freely between the EU and Syria. EU taxpayers would effectively be financing holidays back home, which is unacceptable.
- 1.On the basis of the announcements made by the Council and Commissioner Brunner, is the Commission planning to create a legal framework for holidays back home for Syrian asylum seekers?
- 2.If such a framework is introduced, how does the Commission intend to ensure that this scheme does not degenerate into a holiday ticket for Syrian asylum seekers who are allegedly persecuted in their own country but live here at the expense of EU taxpayers?
- 3.How does the Commission intend to refute the impression that the announcement is not simply a post facto legalisation of a form of asylum fraud that has been practised for years?
Submitted: 25.3.2025