Eight EU Countries Call for European Engagement With Syrian Government

Eight European Union countries are calling on the 27-nation bloc to reconsider its policy toward Syria and suggested engaging directly with the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.

In a letter to the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, the foreign ministers of Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Slovakia, and Slovenia said their goal is a “more active, outcome-driven, and operational Syria policy.”

“This would allow us to increase our political leverage [and] the effectiveness of our humanitarian assistance,” the letter reads, according to Euractiv.

One of the suggestions made in the letter was to create an EU-Syrian envoy that would engage directly with the Assad government and other regional actors. The EU cut off relations with Assad back in 2011 and maintains sanctions on Syria, along with the US.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that the purpose of the sanctions regime on Syria is to prevent the reconstruction of the country. Naturally, the sanctions have a devastating impact on the civilian population of Syria.

Another suggestion the EU members made was to assess the impact the bloc’s sanctions are having on ordinary Syrians. The economic campaign against Syria has contributed to migrants continuing to seek refuge in Europe, and the eight EU members said the bloc should work to create the conditions for the return of migrants to Syria.

Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg acknowledged the failure of the regime change effort against Assad, which was strongly supported by EU member France.

“After 13 years of war, we have to admit that our Syria policy has not aged well,” Schallenberg said, according to Euractiv. “Bitter as it is, with the help of Iran and Russia, the Assad regime remains firmly in the saddle, the Syrian opposition is fragmented or in exile altogether – the European Union cannot turn a blind eye to this reality any longer.”

The US has maintained that it’s opposed to any countries normalizing relations with Syria, but it hasn’t been able to stop the trend of regional countries re-establishing ties with the Assad government.