EU to Discuss Normalization of Relations with Syria

Syrian refugees arrive from Lebanon at the Jdeidet Yabous crossing in southwestern Syria (File/AFP)
Syrian refugees arrive from Lebanon at the Jdeidet Yabous crossing in southwestern Syria (File/AFP)
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EU to Discuss Normalization of Relations with Syria

Syrian refugees arrive from Lebanon at the Jdeidet Yabous crossing in southwestern Syria (File/AFP)
Syrian refugees arrive from Lebanon at the Jdeidet Yabous crossing in southwestern Syria (File/AFP)

Some European Union countries are pushing to normalize ties with Syria in order to facilitate the deportation of Syrian migrants as mainstream leaders look to replicate anti-immigrant far-right parties’ surging popularity across the Continent, according to a report by POLITICO.

The report noted that these efforts are led by Italy, whose Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Tuesday to the Italian Senate ahead of the EU leaders’ meeting, “It is necessary to review the European Union Strategy for Syria and to work with all actors, to create the conditions for Syrian refugees to return to their homeland in a voluntary, safe and sustainable way.”

After President Bashar Assad’s violent crackdown on protesters in 2011 spiraled into a bloody civil war, his government was accused of using chemical weapons on its own people and was accused of torture, the report said.

The EU cut off diplomatic ties with the country in 2011. The regime survived and its operations continued in major part due to the military support of Russia and Iran.

The civil war has since ground to a standstill and the Syrian president has faced near-total global isolation.

Two EU diplomats told POLITICO that Meloni plans to raise the relationship with Damascus during a meeting of the 27 EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday.

Those calls from one of the EU’s largest countries come on top of a concerted push by a group of others, some of which have hard-right or far-right parties in government (or supporting government), such as Austria and Hungary.

The push to normalize relations with war-torn Syria and its president comes after a surge in support for anti-immigrant parties after the European election in June, namely France’s National Rally and Germany’s Alternative for Germany.

In recent weeks, POLITICO said that Poland’s prime minister has drawn a rebuke from the EU executive for saying that Warsaw would suspend asylum rights for migrants coming to Poland via Belarus.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has shut his country’s borders to EU neighbors following a knife attack allegedly involving a migrant and France’s newly appointed prime minister, Michel Barnier, has said EU rules on deportations should be revised to speed up expulsions.

One EU diplomat echoed Meloni, saying Israel’s ground operations after its invasion of Lebanon in early October added momentum to the push for deporting Syrian migrants.

Nearly 200,000 Syrians and Lebanese have fled to Syria since the start of October, according to the UN.

In Europe, more than 1 million Syrian refugees and asylum seekers have arrived in the past 10 years, according to 2021 data from the UN Refugee Agency.

The POLITICO report said Assad’s government, for its part, is eager to return to the embrace of its neighbors and other global leaders.

He has led a charm offensive for years, telling Syrians who fled it is now safe to return.

More recently, Syria has been bankrolling a campaign by Syrian and Western influencers to clean up his country’s image and jumpstart tourism, which has been largely dead for a decade.

But officials have not mapped out how such a shift to normalizing ties might happen. “There is no one who says: we will pick up the phone to call Assad,” said one EU official. “Nobody dares to raise that, but it is a hidden suggestion by some.”

In July, seven EU countries (Austria, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Greece, Croatia and Cyprus) called on the EU’s foreign policy chief to review the EU’s strategy for Syria. The goal, they said, was to improve the humanitarian situation in Syria as well as help return migrants to certain regions of the country.

For others, it’s more complicated.

The Netherlands is not ready to back plans for restarting negotiations with Syria as it is not considered a safe country according to the Dutch domestic assessment, its Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp told POLITICO.

“The Dutch policy is that Syria is not secure to return asylum seekers. If that will happen in the future, [it] depends on the whole mechanism which is depoliticized [for] the Netherlands to decide to what extent Syria is secure, safe enough for the return of migrants,” he added.

The EU foreign policy chief’s response to the letter from seven EU countries was curt.

“How the Syrian regime has been operating for decades is well known and documented, including with the direct support of both Russia and Iran,” Josep Borrell wrote in a letter dated August 28 and obtained by POLITICO.

“That said, rest assured that the EU has always been ready to explore ways to better support the Syrian people and its legitimate aspirations.”

But some within the EU are adamant it is time to, at the very least, start a discussion, even if it is “too early to say whether we can succeed in anything,” one senior EU diplomat said.

“Assad is there, there is no whitewashing of him but Europe has taken in over 1.2 million Syrian citizens,” said Austria’s Alexander Schallenberg, federal minister for European and international affairs.

“Our proposal is an open-minded assessment: where do we stand, where should we go, because we are simply not achieving the results we would like to achieve.”



Hundreds of Thousands Flee as Israel Seizes Rafah in New Gaza 'Security Zone'

A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)
A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)
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Hundreds of Thousands Flee as Israel Seizes Rafah in New Gaza 'Security Zone'

A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)
A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)

Hundreds of thousands of fleeing Gazans sought shelter on Thursday in one of the biggest mass displacements of the war, as Israeli forces advanced into the ruins of the city of Rafah, part of a newly announced "security zone" they intend to seize.

A day after declaring their intention to capture large swathes of the crowded enclave, Israeli force pushed into the city on Gaza's southern edge which had served as a last refuge for people fleeing other areas for much of the war, reported Reuters.

Gaza's health ministry reported at least 97 people killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, including at least 20 killed in an airstrike around dawn in Shejaia suburb of Gaza City.

Rafah "is gone, it is being wiped out," a father of seven among the hundreds of thousands who had fled from Rafah to neighboring Khan Younis, told Reuters via a chat app.

"They are knocking down what is left standing of houses and property," said the man who declined to be identified for fear of repercussions.

After a strike killed several people in Khan Younis, Adel Abu Fakher was checking the damage to his tent.

"Is anything left for us? There’s nothing left for us. We’re being killed while asleep," he said.

The assault to capture Rafah is a major escalation in the war, which Israel restarted last month after effectively abandoning a ceasefire in place since January.

GAZANS FEAR PERMANENT DEPOPULATION

Israel has not spelled out its longterm aims for the security zone its troops are now seizing. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayahu said troops were taking an area he called the "Morag Axis", a reference to an abandoned former Israeli settlement once located between Rafah on Gaza's southern edge and the adjacent main southern city Khan Younis.

Gazans who had returned to homes in the ruins during the ceasefire have now been ordered to flee communities on the northern and southern edges of the strip.

They fear that Israel's intention is to depopulate those areas indefinitely, leaving many hundreds of thousands of people permanently homeless in one of the poorest and most crowded territories on earth. The security zone includes some of Gaza's last agricultural land and critical water infrastructure.

Since the first phase of the ceasefire expired at the start of March with no agreement to prolong it, Israel has imposed a total blockade on all goods reaching Gaza's 2.3 million residents, recreating what international organizations describe as a humanitarian catastrophe after weeks of relative calm.

Israel's stated goal since the start of the war has been the destruction of the Hamas group which ran Gaza for nearly two decades and led the attack on Israeli communities in October 2023 that precipitated the war.

But with no effort made to establish an alternative administration, Hamas-led police returned to the streets during the ceasefire. Fighters still hold 59 dead and living hostages which Israel says must be handed over to extend the truce; Hamas says it will free them only under a deal that ends the war.

Israeli leaders say they have been encouraged by signs of protest in Gaza against Hamas, with hundreds of people demonstrating in north Gaza's Beit Lahiya on Wednesday opposing the war and demanding Hamas quit power. Hamas calls the protesters collaborators and says Israel is behind them.

The war began with a Hamas attack on Israeli communities on October 7, 2023 with gunmen killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies. Israel's campaign has so far killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, Gaza health authorities say.

Rafah residents said most of the local population had followed Israel's order to leave, as Israeli strikes toppled buildings there. But a strike on the main road between Khan Younis and Rafah stopped most movement between the two cities.

Movement of people and traffic along the western coastal road near Morag was also limited by bombardment, said residents.

"Others stayed because they don't know where to go, or got fed up of being displaced several times. We are afraid they might be killed or at best detained," said Basem, a resident of Rafah who declined to give a second name.

Markets have emptied and prices for basic necessities have soared under Israel's total blockade of food, medicine and fuel.

The Palestinian Health Ministry, which is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank but has nominal authority over hospitals in Gaza, said Gaza's entire healthcare system was at risk of collapse.