Just a friendly reminder: of the few migrants who broke through the Greek border over the last 10 days, only very few of them are actually Syrians - most of them are from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.
This was also confirmed by EU Commissionar Johannes Hahn:
https://www.kleinezeitung.at/politik/aussenpolitik/5781563/EUKommissar_Hahn_Kaum-Syrer-an-tuerkischgriechischer-GrenzeIn general, there are three different situations going at once which are easy to mix up:
- There are the people from the Syrian province of Idlib who are stuck at the border between Syria and Turkey after fleeing from an offense by the Assad regime. It should be noted that most of the rebels and islamists in Syria had retreated to Idlib months ago, it was the last region of the country not under control by the government. To complicate things even further, Turkish troops staged an illegal invasion of Syria, trying to get Idlib under their control. Turkey has long been allied with many of the islmamists and rebel groups in Syria, and Turkey has used them as proxy troops during their offense which is now being driven back.
- There are the roughly 3.5m refugees and migrants living in Turkey today. They have received schools and supplies financed by the EU, so the direct costs they cause for the Turkish state are actually rather low. They are, however, a burden on the local housing and job markets, and the mood in the Turkish population has swung against them over the last year or so. 10 days ago, Erdogan has started bringing several thousand of them to the Greek-Turkish border in an attempt at putting pressure on the EU. By blackmailing the EU with the threat of another migrant wave, he hopes to get more money that goes into his own national budget, instead of being funneled directly to the NGOs which are operating the refugee camps on Turkish soil. (He's also seeking some other concessions like easier EU visas for Turkish citizens.) This group of ~3.5m migrants in Turkey consists of Syrian refugees and migrants from Africa/Afghanistan/Pakistan etc who are just seeking a better life, usually with the endgoal of going to Europe.
- There are some 50-60k migrants on the Greek islands, they came between 2016 and 2019 in an attempt to reach mainland Europe, but were stopped and are stuck now.
Assad is still there. There probably won't be real rebuilding of their society when they person who destroyed it to keep control is still sitting on top of them. He barrel bombed his hospitals.
Thanks, I'm aware of these facts. It goes to show the "arab spring" was not the happy event portrayed by EU and US and all those bombs on syria didn't do the job when you have a country like russia capable of throwing a few bombs to return the favor.
Also @BlackXistenz I believe the EU should work out how to deal with the fortune seekers pretty fast if they want to prevent so called populism becoming more popular