The fall of Bashar al-Assad has raised complex questions about the future of the one million Syrians who fled the war and sought refuge in Europe.

The collapse of Bashar al-Assad's brutal dictatorship has left the European Union with a huge list of burning questions to answer: Who is the main interlocutor in the country? How can Brussels contribute to the transition of power? What happens to punitive sanctions? Should EU funds flow again to support reconstruction?

And yet, no other issue is more pressing for governments than the future of the more than one million Syrians who have sought asylum in Europe, according to an analysis by Euronews.

In a cascade of announcements immediately following the fall of Assad, European countries began temporarily halting decisions on asylum applications from Syrian nationals still pending in the system. Germany, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Belgium were among those to take a break, citing volatile conditions on the ground.

In Austria, interim interior minister Gerhard Karner, a hardliner on migration policy, announced the suspension of family reunification and the introduction of a new "orderly repatriation and deportation program" that will apply to around 40.000 Syrians who have been granted protection in recent years. five years.

The focus will be on those who have become criminals, those who do not want to adapt to the cultural values ​​in Europe, in Austria or those who do not want to work and therefore live only on social benefits. They are obviously a priority in this program,” Karner said.

Vienna's proposal was rebuked by Birgit Sippel, a Socialist member of the European Parliament with years of experience in migration policy, who denounced it as premature.

"Deporting people back to Syria?" I think it's too early to do that because we don't know what will happen next. Will the country live in peace or will different groups start fighting each other and make things worse?

"It's a bit funny to see that, on the one hand, member states are already talking about returning people to Syria and others are worried that things could get worse."

But member states had already begun discussions on how to speed up the voluntary return of Syrian refugees ahead of the weekend's emergency events, although the topic remained highly controversial.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni earlier this year called for a careful rapprochement with the Assad regime by reopening the Italian embassy in Damascus and asking the bloc to revise its strategy towards the war-torn country. Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia, Greece, the Czech Republic and Cyprus supported Italy's call in a joint letter published in July.

The vast majority of Syrians who fled the civil war and came to the EU seeking asylum were granted refugee or subsidiary protection status and allowed to stay in the bloc indefinitely. Due to the bloody nature of the conflict, Syrians were protected by the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits authorities from deporting migrants to countries where they may face persecution, torture or any other ill-treatment.

In practice, this meant that EU countries could, at most, help those who voluntarily wanted to return. With Assad still clinging to power, few have been persuaded to do so: last year, only 38.300 of the 5,1 million Syrian refugees taken in by neighboring countries chose to return, according to the UN refugee agency ( UNHCR).

Conditions in Syria were "not yet conducive to facilitating large-scale voluntary returns in safety and dignity," the UNCHR warned in its annual review. Concerns about security, livelihoods, basic services and housing were cited as reasons for the low rate of repatriations. About 90% of people in Syria live in poverty.

Although many of these factors are not expected to improve soon due to the enormous devastation caused by the long war, a radical change in the political situation is likely to prompt a reassessment of how dangerous the Syrian is, which in turn will pave the way for a review of the protections afforded to them. given to those who escaped the war.

The EU Qualification Directive, which has been in force since 2011, sets out six criteria for what is known as 'cessation' of refugee status, repeating (almost verbatim) the rules set out in the 1951 Refugee Convention. The first four are mostly voluntary and can already apply to those Syrians who freely go back and renounce their international protection.