Germany
imposes surprise curbs on Syrian refugees
Abrupt
U-turn by Merkel government means people fleeing civil war will no
longer be granted asylum or refugee status
Ian Traynor Europe
editor
Friday 6 November
2015 20.02 GMT
Angela Merkel has
performed an abrupt U-turn on her open-door policy towards people
fleeing Syria’s civil war, with Berlin announcing that the hundreds
of thousands of Syrians entering Germany would not be granted asylum
or refugee status.
Syrians would still
be allowed to enter Germany, but only for one year and with
“subsidiary protection” that limits their rights as refugees.
Family members would be barred from joining them.
Germany, along with
Sweden and Austria, has been the most open to taking in newcomers
over the last six months of the growing refugee crisis, with the
numbers entering Germany dwarfing those arriving anywhere else.
However, the
interior minister, Thomas de Maizière, announced that Berlin was
starting to fall into line with governments elsewhere in the European
Union, who were either erecting barriers to the newcomers or acting
as transit countries and limiting their own intake of refugees.
“In this situation
other countries are only guaranteeing a limited stay,” De Maizière
said. “We’ll now do the same with Syrians in the future. We’re
telling them ‘you will get protection, but only so-called
subsidiary protection that is limited to a period and without any
family unification.’”
The major policy
shift followed a crisis meeting of Merkel’s cabinet and coalition
partners on Thursday. The chancellor won global plaudits in August
when she suspended EU immigration rules to declare that any Syrians
entering Germany would gain refugee status, though this stirred
consternation among EU partners who were not forewarned of the move.
Thursday’s meeting
decided against setting up “transit zones” for the processing of
refugees on Germany’s borders with Austria, but agreed on prompt
deportation of people whose asylum claims had failed.
Until now Syrians,
Iraqis and Eritreans entering Germany have been virtually guaranteed
full refugee status, meaning the right to stay for at least three
years, entitlement for family members to join them, and generous
welfare benefits.
Almost 40,000
Syrians were granted refugee status in Germany in August, according
to the Berlin office responsible for the programme, with only 53
being given “subsidiary” status. That now appears to have ended
abruptly.
An interior ministry
spokesman told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “The Federal
Office for Migration and Refugees is instructed henceforth to grant
Syrian civil war refugees only subsidiary protection.”
De Maizière
described the new regime as “a win for security and order for
Germany”.
But the suddenness
of the move by the country that has been pivotal in the EU’s
biggest ever immigration crisis will ripple across the region with
unknown consequences, particularly in the transit countries of the
Balkans and central Europe, through which hundreds of thousands have
been trekking towards Germany.
The German curbs
will encourage these countries to establish barriers of their own to
the refugee wave. Merkel is also pressing countries such as Croatia,
Slovenia, and Serbia to establish “reception centres” or camps
where refugees can be processed and screened before they reach
Germany. The countries are resisting because no one knows what to do
with those who are screened and do not pass muster for passage to
Germany.
Berlin is the most
powerful advocate of sharing the refugee burden across the EU, but
has also frustrated and angered several countries with a series of
unilateral decisions that have had major knock-on effects across the
union.

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