Merz rolls out the red carpet for al-Sharaa

This Berlin visit Eye levelwith military honors and a red carpet, caused severe criticism. Both had Merz predecessors Olaf Scholz (SPD) even the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán denied after he disagreed with EU aid for Ukraine.

Actually, al-Sharaa would already be in January traveled to Germany. Even then, there was outrage at the human rights violations that he and his Islamist HTS fighters were accused of.

“Moral Bankruptcy”

Since then, the criticism has not stopped, on the contrary: the reason for the postponement of his visit was the Syrian offensive against the Kurdish autonomous region of northern and eastern Syria Kurds After several weeks of fighting, forced a ceasefire including compromises that effectively meant the end of the Kurdish self-administration zone. Before the visit, the German Left Party spoke of “moral bankruptcy”; The Syrian regime was “built on the rubble of al-Qaeda-affiliated networks” and is now being courted by the federal government.

On Monday there were supporters from the Syrian diaspora waving the new Syrian flag (green-white-black with three red stars) and displaying the victory symbol, as well as pro-Kurdish protest groups with photo collages of al-Sharaa and the former dictator Bashar al-Assadon the streets of Berlin.

Money against deportations

The interests of the Syrian president are clear, as are those of the German federal government: Al-Sharaa promises moderation, stability, security – especially for foreign investments, which the country so urgently needs after a decade of civil war. Al-Sharaa is trying to build a bridge between East and West and is doing well Moscowwhich once supported the Assad regime and granted political asylum to the dictator and his family, as well as with the USAwho were on the Kurdish side in the fight against IS.

Since the Islamist HTS came to power, Syria has received most of its money from al-Sharaa Gulf Stateswho saw their own benefit in overthrowing the Assad regime, an ally of the mullahs in Iran. In the first year of his term in office, his government changed many investment laws and the legal infrastructure for investments in Syria improved. Syria I now have commitments for investments amounting to 350 billion dollars (around 30.4 billion euros), said al-Sharaa at the event in the Foreign Office.

According to a parliamentary question the federal government made commitments last year 218 million euros made for reconstruction. However, funds would still not flow to government agencies in Syria, but only to selected organizations and the United Nations.

Germany, in turn, wants to classify Syria as a safe country of origin and Syrian Persons entitled to asylumprimarily criminals, deport. The number of initial asylum applications was halved in the previous year compared to 2024 (113,000); Syrians (23,250) are the largest group after Afghans (23,970). Overall, after Ukrainians, Syrians are the largest group of refugees in Germany with 935,000 people.

It is needed for deportations reconstruction and Investmentsthe German economy is also interested in this: Al-Sharaa also met the CDU economics minister in Berlin Katherina Reiche and German companies from the energy sector, the construction industry, mechanical and plant engineering.

People are fleeing Lebanon back to Syria

A stable future for Syria is anything but certain: there is almost no investigation of crimes during the civil war, there is great uncertainty among minorities after the massacres of Druze and Alawites, as is mistrust among one another. The Catholic churches in Damascus have canceled planned processions and events after the majority of Christen The inhabited town of Sukajlabija was attacked. Shops are said to have been vandalized and cars set on fire.

In addition, the new one is also at risk Krieg im Middle East the country: During the civil war, millions of Syrians fled the country. Over 500,000 are registered in Lebanon, but the Lebanese government speaks of a total 1.12 million refugees. Now people are once again fleeing bombs – this time Israeli ones – back to Syria. According to the IOM, since the beginning of March 150,000 peopleincluding several thousand Lebanese, the border, back into insecurity.