Berlin. At the start of Holy Week, Germany has welcomed a particularly controversial state guest. Ahmed al-Sharaa, now Syria’s interim president and a dialogue partner for the West, was known only a few years ago under a different name: Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, leader of the Nusra Front and later head of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.
That such a figure is now being received at Schloss Bellevue and the Federal Chancellery would have been almost inconceivable before the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. For Monday, a meeting with Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) was scheduled, followed by talks with Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) at the Chancellery, including a press conference. Demonstrations both for and against the visitor were registered in Berlin in parallel. Police said several thousand participants were expected, along with extensive security measures.
A new partner in Damascus
Even that setting makes clear what is at stake politically. Berlin is not treating al-Sharaa as an exotic marginal figure from the Middle East, but as a power broker with whom it intends to work. The federal government has made that plain. Government spokesman Stefan Kornelius not only announced the meeting with Merz, but also made clear that the visit forms part of a broader Syria strategy, in which return, repatriation and reconstruction are considered together. As early as November, the government stated that everything it does to stabilise and rebuild Syria ultimately serves the aim of enabling return. In 2025, Berlin also pledged €218 million for Syria’s reconstruction.
This is where the real problem begins. For its migration policy, Germany needs a counterpart in Damascus. Without such a partner, deportations to Syria remain a political slogan. With one, they could become reality. But the price of such cooperation is high. Germany is conferring protocol status on a man whose political origins lie in jihad and whose present rule is accompanied by serious doubts.
Growing concerns on the ground
Those doubts have sharpened once again immediately ahead of the Berlin visit. In the predominantly Christian town of Suqailabiyya in Hama province, serious attacks took place on the night of 28 March. Armed groups are said to have looted homes, threatened civilians and operated in the presence of, or with the involvement of, security forces. At the same time, there are reports that since Assad’s fall, members of the Alawite, Druze and Christian minorities have repeatedly been targeted by armed groups close to the new rulers. Sharaa’s government condemned the attacks, yet many Syrians accuse it either of looking away or of being unable to control the militias. For Berlin, that is the worst possible backdrop to a visit officially intended to promote reconstruction and return.
The question of whether one may speak to such a man is therefore the wrong one. Of course a government may engage with problematic actors; foreign policy is no moral seminar. The decisive question is another: under what conditions may a former jihadist be elevated as a state guest, and what tangible results must follow for that political price to be justified at all?
What is new, however, is how far the federal government appears prepared to go. Alongside the political talks, Berlin sent an economic signal. At a German–Syrian business round table, also attended by al-Sharaa, the government indicated a willingness to pursue significantly closer economic cooperation.
Johann Wadephul said Germany stood ‘at Syria’s side’ and wanted to play a ‘strong role’ in reconstruction. Katherina Reiche spoke openly of ‘business opportunities’ for German companies, particularly in energy, construction, mechanical engineering, IT and security technologies. The focus is on power plants, infrastructure and long-term economic prospects.
This considerably broadens the scope of the visit. It is no longer only about migration, but also about economic interests. Germany is signalling a readiness to invest and expects political cooperation in return.
The Syrian test of Germany’s migration shift
For Friedrich Merz and Alexander Dobrindt, Syria is not an isolated foreign policy issue, but a test of the credibility of the promised shift in migration policy.
Merz set out his line early: migration should once again be ‘ordered, managed and limited’. Dobrindt speaks explicitly of a ‘migration shift’. The coalition agreement gives concrete form to that policy: more returns, more refusals at the border, restrictions on admission programmes, suspension of family reunification for those with subsidiary protection and, explicitly, deportations to Syria – initially for offenders and security risks. The direction is clear. Its implementation, however, will be decided in specific cases. Syria is the most important of them.
The scale of the task is evident from the figures. As of 31 December 2025, exactly 936,285 Syrian nationals were registered in Germany’s Central Register of Foreign Nationals. At the same time, return remains marginal. A total of 3,685 people left Germany in 2025 under state-supported programmes. Even including other departures, the overall scale remains small.
Set against that is continued immigration. Arrivals, asylum applications and family reunification ensure that the overall number hardly declines. The result is a structural imbalance: return exists, but remains statistically barely visible. Even moderate levels of new arrivals exceed it by a wide margin. Put differently, the political expectation of a noticeable return movement remains at odds with reality.
Merz: 80 per cent expected to leave
A strikingly concrete political target now adds a new dimension to the visit. Friedrich Merz said publicly that ‘most Syrians’ wished to return and, for the first time, put a figure on it: up to 80 per cent of Syrians living in Germany are expected to return to their country within the next three years. According to Merz, that assessment is based on talks with the Syrian president. At the same time, the federal government announced that it would review the protection status of many Syrians. Those no longer entitled to remain would be required to leave Germany.
In parallel, a joint ‘task force’ is to oversee Syria’s reconstruction, backed by further financial commitments and closer economic cooperation. Within the Union, some voices are going further still, calling for targeted return programmes and even a ‘Marshall Plan’, under which Syrians trained in Germany would act as agents of reconstruction. What had until now been a largely abstract shift in migration policy is thus taking shape as a quantified political project, though its feasibility remains uncertain.
This is where the logic of the visit becomes clear. The federal government is attempting to shift the imbalance between arrivals and returns. It is offering economic cooperation, political recognition and international integration, in the expectation that Damascus will cooperate on readmissions and repatriations.
Yet that strategy carries considerable risks. First, it remains unclear whether a reliable partner exists at all. Second, the situation in Syria shows that stability and the protection of minorities are far from assured. Third, domestic political pressure is growing: the more strongly the government presents the visit as a lever for its migration shift, the more visible any failure will become.
There is also a statistical effect that is often overlooked. Changes in the number of Syrian nationals are not explained solely by return, but also by naturalisation. Those who obtain German citizenship disappear from the statistics, but remain in the country. A declining figure in the register is therefore not a reliable indicator of actual return.
Conclusion: the price of the strategy
The visit of Ahmed al-Sharaa is not a diplomatic anomaly, but a deliberately calibrated signal. Germany is prepared to cooperate with a former jihadist if it serves its strategic interests. Managing migration, enabling return and at the same time securing economic opportunities in Syria’s reconstruction – that is the logic behind the reception.
Yet that strategy is viable only if it delivers results. If return remains marginal, immigration continues and the situation of minorities in Syria does not improve, the entire approach loses its foundation. In that case, the political price – the elevation of a highly controversial actor – would outweigh any tangible benefit.
The visit thus becomes a test case for the credibility of the announced migration shift. It shows how far the federal government is willing to go to achieve its aims and how dependent those aims are on developments it can only partly control. What will matter in the end is not that this state guest was received, but whether it leads to a policy that is genuinely effective.