MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION on the need for EU support towards a just transition and reconstruction in Syria
7.3.2025 - (2025/2569(RSP))
pursuant to Rule 136(2) of the Rules of Procedure
Ingeborg Ter Laak, Michael Gahler, Laurent Castillo, Isabel Wiseler‑Lima, Sebastião Bugalho, Andrey Kovatchev, Željana Zovko, François‑Xavier Bellamy, Davor Ivo Stier, Antonio López‑Istúriz White, Reinhold Lopatka, Wouter Beke, Vangelis Meimarakis, Jan Farský, Nicolás Pascual de la Parte, Daniel Caspary, Ana Miguel Pedro
on behalf of the PPE Group
See also joint motion for a resolution RC-B10-0157/2025
B10‑0160/2025
European Parliament resolution on the need for EU support towards a just transition and reconstruction in Syria
The European Parliament,
– having regard to UN Security Council Resolution 2254 (2015), adopted on 18 December 2015,
– having regard to its recommendation of 28 February 2024 to the Council, the Commission and the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy on the situation in Syria[1],
– having regard to UN Security Council Resolutions 1325 (2000), 2170 (2014), 2427 (2018), 2664 (2022) and 2672 (2023),
– having regard to the statement by the UN Secretary-General of 8 December 2024,
– having regard to the statement by the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Mr Geir O. Pedersen of 8 December 2024,
– having regard to the statement by the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of 9 December 2024,
– having regard to Council Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/408 of 24 February 2025 implementing Regulation (EU) No 36/2012 concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Syria[2],
– having regard to Rule 136 (2) of its Rules of Procedure,
A. whereas in December 2024, Syria witnessed momentous change, as a rebel coalition consisting of the armed group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Syrian National Army (SNA) and several other opposition forces toppled Bashar al-Assad’s murderous regime;
B. whereas Bashar al-Assad fled the country, having been granted political asylum in the Russian Federation;
C. whereas in January 2025, the Syrian constitution of 2012 was nullified, the People’s Assembly, the Ba’ath Party and all revolutionary factions were dissolved and HTS leader Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa was declared the de facto interim President of Syria;
D. whereas numerous plans have been laid out by the transitional government, including rebuilding state capacity, tackling corruption and cronyism and restoring trust in the state;
E. whereas Syria’s de facto interim President has pledged to form a non-sectarian, comprehensive, credible and inclusive government that reflects Syria’s ethnic and religious diversity and to increase engagement with neighbouring countries and other foreign actors;
F. whereas Syria finds itself in an extremely dire economic situation, with its GDP having plummeted by 64 % since the beginning of the war in 2011, its currency having lost around two thirds of its value against the US dollar in the past two years and inflation reaching a record high level of 40.2 % in 2024;
G. whereas Syria has experienced a dramatic decline in exports, by 84 %, and imports, by 70 %, as compared with pre-war levels;
H. whereas since 2021, the EU has lost its status both as largest exporter to Syria and as largest importer of Syrian goods, to Türkiye and Saudi Arabia respectively;
I. whereas Syria has been struggling with an unemployment rate of around 14 % for several years;
J. whereas the conflict has led to a sharp decline in living standards, with over 80 % of Syrians living below the poverty line and facing significant challenges in accessing food, healthcare and clean water;
K. whereas according to World Bank estimates, extreme poverty in Syria is expected to increase further, from 33.1 % in 2024 to 37.4 % in 2025;
L. whereas the humanitarian situation on the ground continues to deteriorate, with 16.7 million Syrians reliant on aid and more than half of the population heavily affected by food insecurity;
M. whereas some 7 million people have been internally displaced and 5.6 million have fled to neighbouring countries and beyond;
N. whereas in 2024, the EU allocated EUR 159 million in humanitarian aid to assist Syrians and, in addition to direct aid, pledged a further EUR 2.12 billion for 2024-2025 during the Brussels VIII Conference; whereas the EU’s assistance focuses on life-saving aid, resilience programmes and the political objective of implementing UN Security Council Resolution 2254 (2015);
O. whereas since November 2024, 1.1 million additional people have been forced to relocate within Syria;
P. whereas the EU aims to facilitate engagement with Syria, its people and its businesses in key areas of the energy, transport, health and education sectors, and to facilitate financial and banking transactions associated with such sectors and those needed for humanitarian and reconstruction purposes; whereas to this end, the Council decided to suspend restrictive measures on key economic sectors on 24 February 2024;
Q. whereas the United States imposes the most comprehensive sanctions on Syria, including secondary sanctions on foreign governments, non-US individuals and entities doing business with the Syrian Government;
R. whereas ISIS (Da’esh) continues to operate within and from Syria, relying on its centre for external operational planning in the Badia region; whereas credible assessments have highlighted that ISIS might exploit the current situation to shore up its standing and capabilities;
S. whereas it remains unclear whether Russia will be able to continue to exert its economic, military and political leverage on Syria;
T. whereas Türkiye’s standing continues to remain uncertain, as the Turkish-backed SNA has not been included in the transitional government; whereas it is to be expected that Türkiye will not refrain from increasing pressure on Kurdish forces in northern Syria to further tighten its grip on the territories along the Turkish-Syrian border;
1. Commends the efforts of several EU foreign ministers to set up channels of communication and initiate a formal dialogue with Syria’s transitional government;
2. Calls on the Member States to support all EU diplomatic efforts towards establishing a frank and constructive working relationship with the interim government;
3. Calls for all necessary measures and mechanisms to be put in place to shed true and comprehensive light on the crimes perpetrated across the country under the regime of Bashar al-Assad, including through cooperation and engagement with international experts and existing international mechanisms; calls for the voices and suffering of victims and survivors to be heard and to serve as the cornerstone for achieving justice, accountability and societal reconciliation;
4. Urges Syria’s interim government to establish an independent transitional justice committee to ensure accountability for past human rights violations committed by all factions and promote national reconciliation, and emphasises that military unification cannot be achieved without a credible justice mechanism for building trust among armed groups, including representatives of the southern factions, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and former regime officers;
5. Calls on Syria’s interim government to cooperate with the UN mechanisms established specifically for Syria, and calls for the EU to support those mechanisms in fulfilling their mandate, including by increasing funding for the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) and other existing justice initiatives on Syria;
6. Urges Syria’s transitional government to grant both those affected by the brutality of the Assad regime and the civil society organisations assisting them full and unrestricted access to archival documents and to support them in their truth-finding and justice-seeking efforts;
7. Acknowledges the experiences and perspectives of Syrian women and calls for them to play a leading role in justice efforts;
8. Stresses the key need for justice and accountability processes to address the role of sexualised and gender-based violence;
9. Urges the Syrian transitional government to address the suffering inflicted on children and calls for effective and inclusive pedagogical, didactical and clinical measures to be put in place;
10. Calls on the transitional government to restore state institutions and adopt all necessary measures to ensure that they do not evolve into strongholds of specific factions;
11. Emphasises the need to continue holding inclusive national dialogues and open political discussions among all sections of Syrian society to ensure a sustainable and representative transition;
12. Welcomes, in this regard, the recent national dialogue conference held on 25 February 2025 as a starting point for Syrians to gather and freely discuss challenges and opportunities; stresses that it is imperative to continue such dialogue in order to prevent deepening societal divisions and discord within key sections of Syrian society and a further destabilisation of an already fragile security situation;
13 Welcomes the interim President’s announcement of 2 March 2025 on the creation of a committee of experts tasked with drafting a constitutional declaration aimed at regulating the country’s transitional political phase; hopes that this will include all groups, movements, opposition forces, minorities and societal actors;
14. Urges the transitional government to acknowledge and safeguard all ethnic and religious groups, including Christians, Shias, Ismailis, Alawites, Kurds and all others, and to curtail any attempts to stir up sectarian division;
15. Stresses the importance of pursuing reforms and establishing political mechanisms in line with democratic principles, individual freedom and international law;
16. Calls on Syria’s transitional government to recognise the fundamental role of civil society and Syria’s diverse ethnic, religious and tribal communities in shaping the country’s future political framework and contributing to the reconstruction of its social fabric;
17. Urges the interim government to take all necessary steps to create the conditions for the operation of a vibrant, free and independent press; calls for all restrictions on the media to be lifted;
18. Urges the interim government to create the necessary conditions for women to play a central role in Syria’s political and economic life;
19. Underlines the crucial need for the EU to continue providing substantial humanitarian aid in line with the degree of humanitarian, development, economic and stabilisation assistance delivered since 2011;
20. Supports the implementation of policies that foster equitable development across all regions, contribute to a unified national identity and balance development across urban and rural areas to reduce regional disparities; stresses, furthermore, the key importance of empowering local communities;
21. Stresses the need for wide-reaching economic reforms, in particular within the energy and agricultural sectors;
22. Stresses that the reconstruction of Syria’s energy infrastructure through the restoration of full control over the oil fields in north-east Syria and strengthening production facilities is key to the country’s economic recovery;
23. Calls for the EU to play a central role in these efforts and welcomes the gradual and conditional lifting of specific sanctions, in particular those that hinder humanitarian assistance and that impose restrictions on infrastructure projects, the financial sector and financial support for trade, and the transport sector; calls on all international actors, especially the United States, to do likewise and consider a gradual lifting of sanctions;
24. Calls, nevertheless, for individual sanctions against military personnel, officials, business entities and individuals associated with the Assad family to be maintained;
25. Calls on the interim government to eliminate the entire stock of chemical weapons present within Syria in close coordination with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons;
26. Calls on the transitional government to adopt all necessary measures to counter drug trafficking networks, especially those relating to the smuggling of Captagon;
27. Calls for all necessary steps to be taken to incentivise and facilitate foreign direct investment in Syria in accordance with international standards;
28. Calls on the Commission to support reconstruction efforts focusing on sectors that are key to improving Syrians’ economic prospects, including transport, electricity, health and education, and to ensure that funding programmes are accompanied by due diligence and independent monitoring;
29. Advises that the European Investment Bank play a key role in strengthening Syria’s banking sector, which continues to be almost entirely reliant on Lebanese banks for commercial and personal transactions, and calls for Syria’s banking sector to be connected to the SWIFT system in order to improve traceability;
30. Advises the EU Member States to ensure that Syrians residing in Europe and enjoying international protection are allowed to undertake exploratory ‘go and see’ visits to Syria without losing their current status; urges the Commission to provide guidance in this regard;
31. Expresses deep concern over the withdrawal of the US Agency for International Development assistance from north-east Syria, exacerbating the already critical humanitarian situation and further straining the SDF’s capacity to manage ISIS detention facilities; acknowledges that the continued presence of thousands of detained ISIS fighters and their families poses a severe security risk to the region, necessitating increased international responsibility-sharing and sustainable solutions for their prosecution, rehabilitation or repatriation;
32. Urges the interim government to ensure that Syria’s rich cultural heritage is adequately protected;
33. Calls on all foreign actors to refrain from interfering politically, economically and militarily in Syria’s internal and external affairs;
34. Urges Syria’s neighbours to respect its sovereignty and territorial integrity in accordance with international law;
35. Calls on the Russian Federation to desist from undertaking any attempts to influence, alter or curtail the reconstruction process; urges the Russian Federation, moreover, to cease all operations from the Khmeimim Air Base and the Tartus naval base; calls on Syria’s interim government and on the governments of all other countries to refrain from providing assistance to Russia in this regard;
36. Calls on Türkiye to refrain from exerting pressure on Kurdish forces through military action across north-west Syria and from weaponising 3.5 million Syrian refugees in Türkiye;
37. Calls on the Islamic Republic of Iran to cease all activities aimed at torpedoing the political and economic efforts of Syria’s interim government and at altering the status quo by means of force;
38. Issues a strong call for the interim government to refrain from any hostile political, economic and military action towards neighbouring countries;
39. Expresses concern over the appointment of foreign nationals with jihadist affiliations to senior positions within the ministry of defence, including Brigadiers General Abdul Rahman Hussein al-Khatib (Abu Hussein al-Urduni), Omar Mohammed Jaftashi (Mukhtar al-Turki) and Abu Amsha (Mohammed al-Jassem), and stresses that such appointments could undermine efforts to establish a stable and inclusive security structure in Syria;
40. Urges Syria’s interim government to ensure that all military and security appointments are based strictly on professional qualifications, respect for international human rights and humanitarian law, and a commitment to combating terrorism, and to emphasise that individuals with extremist affiliations must not be allowed to hold positions of authority within state institutions;
41. Stresses the importance of taking concrete steps to address the highly fragile situation in several ISIS detention centres in north-east Syria; expresses concern about the humanitarian situation on the ground and the burden currently being shouldered exclusively by the SDF; calls on all parties to work together to establish an effective and sustainable framework for addressing rising tensions;
42. Urges Syria’s interim government to formulate a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy in accordance with international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law;
43. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the transitional government of Syria.
- [1] OJ C, C/2024/6749, 26.11.2024, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2024/6749/oj.
- [2] OJ L, 2025/408, 25.2.2025, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2025/408/oj.