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The federal and state interior ministers have not been able to agree on an extension of the general ban on deportation for Syrians in Germany.

As the State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Hans-Georg Engelke, announced on Friday after the Conference of Interior Ministers in Berlin, the general ban on deportation for the civil war country, which has been in force since 2012, expires at the end of the year.

This means that criminals and those at risk can be deported again at the beginning of the year after a case-by-case review.

The "signal" should emanate from the move that "Germany is not a safe haven for endangered persons and serious criminals," said Engelke.

Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) said that it was “impossible to convey” to the population that it should be taboo from the outset to think about whether dangerous people and serious criminals could be transported back to their homeland.

Berlin's Senator for the Interior, Andreas Geisel (SPD), was disappointed that the general ban on deportations was not being extended.

"The CDU / CSU interior ministers want to give the impression that there are no more obstacles to returning people to Syria," he said.

"But this is not the case."

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He, too, would find it “sensible to deport Syrian threats and serious criminals from Germany to Syria after they have served their sentence,” said Geisel.

"Unfortunately, there are currently neither legal nor organizational options for this." The Foreign Office reports "on the worst conditions of civil war, there are no diplomatic relations with the Assad regime, the federal police do not fly to Syria, there are no local contacts".

Lower Saxony Minister of the Interior Boris Pistorius (SPD) said that the procedure for the deportations from Syria was "a bit for populist".

With the end of the deportation stop, the problems were not solved, said Pistorius, pointing to practical difficulties.

There are no diplomatic relations with Syria and no direct flights from Germany to the country.

Germany would also be the first country in the EU to deport people to Syria.

The chairman of the conference of interior ministers, Thuringia's head of department Georg Maier (SPD), said people would now expect the first machines to fly to Syria with deportees in January.

"And that won't happen," he said.

That would make you lose credibility.

Interior Minister Seehofer prevails

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Engelke admitted that there would be no immediate deportation flights to Syria.

The decision is about a signal to those affected that it does not matter what they do in Germany.

Engelke represented Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) at the Conference of Interior Ministers, who himself did not take part in the deliberations because he is in precautionary isolation because of contact with an employee infected with Corona.

Since 2012 there has been a deportation freeze for people from the civil war country Syria.

5,719 Syrians were required to leave Germany on October 31, so they had no right of residence in Germany.

According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, around 90 Syrians living in Germany are currently classified by the state authorities as Islamist threats.

The ministry was unable to provide any information on criminals.

Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) in particular campaigned for a softening of this deportation freeze.

The last time there was criticism of the regulation after the knife attack on two German tourists in Dresden in October, in which one of the attacked men died.

The suspect is a 20-year-old Syrian who is said to have connections to the Islamist scene.

He was arrested two weeks after the crime.