According to a judgment handed down by the Cologne Administrative Court, people coming to Germany from Syria will not automatically qualify for asylum and may even be rejected. In the ruling, the court argued that the situation in the Middle Eastern country had changed significantly since the fall of the Assad regime last December. While the decision applies only to an individual case, future appeals could lead to it becoming case law.
According to the court ruling, Syrians in Germany do not have a blanket right to protection anymore, and may even fail asylum applications, as the living conditions in their country have improved significantly since the end of last year.
The Cologne Administrative Court dismissed a Syrian man's lawsuit against his rejected asylum application in a ruling on September 17.
The man, who originally comes from Syria's northeastern region of Hasaka, was found to no longer be at risk of persecution by the Assad regime and its henchmen in his home country.
The ruling also outlined that he didn't face any such threat by Syria's new transitional government nor by the local government of Hasaka, which is run by the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES).
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A case of bad timing
The man had reportedly applied for asylum in Germany in October 2023 — well over a year before the fall of Assad's regime.
The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) processed the claim and ultimately rejected his application — but only in April 2025, i.e. several months after the regime change in Syria.
BAMF justified its decision by stating that the situation in Syria had changed significantly during the time that his claim was being processed, and also threatened the plaintiff with deportation to Syria if he didn't comply and plan his own departure.
The plaintiff then filed a lawsuit against BAMF's negative decision the following month, which he has now lost.
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Syria's hopeful economic outlook
The court ruling not only backed up the logic used behind the original BAMF decision but also examined other issues related to the plaintiff's case:
The court said that it had no proof of the man potentially suffering any existential level of economic hardship in the event of his return to Syria.
It argued that the man had family members in Syria who would support him initially and that if he were to opt for a voluntary return program, he would also receive financial support from the German government.
It also took an overall assessment of the economic outlook for Syria, saying that the current developments of rising wages in relation to falling food prices hinted at an economy into which he could easily be integrated.
The ruling, however, is not yet final and binding, as the man may still lodge an appeal with the Higher Administrative Court for the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.
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Calls to classify Syria a 'safe' country of origin
Prior to the events that unfolded in Syria in December of last year, BAMF had granted protection status to Syrian nationals in almost all cases and with hardly any exception.
However, due to the high volume of Syrians coming to Germany specifically, in most cases the protection status issued was subsidiary protection and not full asylum, which is a status that comes with fewer privileges and more obligations.
There have been mounting calls in Germany in recent months, especially by the political far-right, to stop asylum cases involving Syrian nationals and to declare Syria a "safe country" in order to start deporting people back.
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Syria: between Iraq and a hard place
However, rights groups argue that Syria's future still hangs in the balance, as the transitional government is only now holding its first elections to prove that it is able to govern Syria in a democratic fashion.
The opposition movement, which eventually brought down the Assad dynasty — Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) — used to be classified as a jihadist terror group by many Western governments.
Despite officially disbanding in January 2025 after succeeding in the toppling of Assad, many of its operatives are now in key positions of power, with its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa now serving as the country's interim president.
Furthermore, there have been repeated clashes between various groups in Syria, which in 2025 have resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands more people being displaced internally, affecting in particular the Druze and and Alawite communities.
Extremist groups, including the "Islamic State" (IS) continue to vie for pockets of power, as Syria begins to reckon with its future; even some moderate groups like the Kurds — especially in the northeast of the country — are trying to break away from the republic to form alliances with their counterparts in neighboring Iraq in the hopes of having their own country.
There's also the ongoing issue of the war in Gaza; with both Israel and Lebanon neighboring Syria and with Israel occupying the Syrian territory of the Golan Heights for strategic purposes since 1967, conflict could return to the region if the security situation were to escalate any further, especially since Israel has repeatedly stressed that it would only support any lasting peace in Syria if it remains in control over Golan.
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Safe or unsafe? That is the question
These geopolitical considerations, however, are not likely to factor into the case as it moves to its next appeal level, though one key issue might be brought up:
As elections are underway in Syria, three provinces — including Hasaka, from which the man hails — will be excluded from partaking, with the country's election body announcing last month that the polls would be delayed in these regions until a "safe environment" was in place, according to reports on the SANA state news agency.
With Syria's own government classifying Hasaka as unstable, the appeals court might have grounds to reverse the administrative court's decision, at least for the time being.
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