Europe asks: Is it time for Syria’s refugees to go home?

On Monday, Germany and Austria said they were putting asylum applications by Syrians on hold. Others, including Denmark, Sweden, Finland and the U.K. have followed suit.

In Austria, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said he had instructed officials to “prepare an orderly repatriation and deportation program" for Syrians. Family reunification for accepted Syrian refugees had also been suspended, he said.

Since hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers began streaming into Europe in 2015, Syrians have made up the largest single group almost every year. Now officials and experts are wondering whether the end might be in sight for a refugee crisis that never fully abated.

“No country has received as many Syrians in the European Union as Germany… So far this year, the vast majority of those who got protection were Syrians," said Gerald Knaus, head of the European Stability Initiative, a Berlin-based think tank, and an author on migration and international conflicts, “So this could be a potential major turning point and game-changer."

The political impact could be far-reaching: The refugee crisis scrambled Europe’s politics, strengthening hitherto fringe anti-immigration parties from Germany to France, the Netherlands, Sweden or Finland, strained host countries’ public finances, and raised concerns about infiltration by foreign criminals and terrorists.

In a sign of the pressure weighing on mainstream politicians, some say Syrians should be encouraged to leave now, without waiting for the situation in the country to stabilize.

Jens Spahn, a lawmaker and senior center-right opposition politician in Germany, told a broadcast interview on Monday that Berlin should offer a flight ticket and 1,000 euros, equivalent to $1,055, to any Syrian willing to return home.

Yet it could take a long time for migration flows to reverse, if they ever do, Knaus warned. After the conflict in Bosnia ended in the mid-1990s, he said, it took three years for Bosnian refugees in Europe to start going home in large numbers.

Nouman Mallo, 29, who fled Deir Ezzour in southern Syria for Germany in 2014, said: “I had written off Syria as a homeland…Now I feel like I have a homeland again."

Mallo studied international relations in Dresden and now works as a parliamentary researcher in Berlin. He took up German citizenship in 2021. While he is eager to show his German wife the country of his birth, he said “I don’t see myself moving back…I have grown deep roots here, things would need to go incredibly well in Syria for me to uproot myself again."

Syrians made up the second-largest group of refugees worldwide last year after Afghans, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, with 6.36 million refugees and almost 300,000 asylum seekers. The diaspora, including permanent residents and dual citizens, is larger.

Turkey has been the main destination for Syrians, with some 2.9 million currently in the country, according to the government. Jordan and Lebanon are also home to large communities. In Europe, Germany has the most, with close to a million Syrians in the country, where they are the largest refugee group after Ukrainians.

Within hours of President Bashar al-Assad’s fall on Sunday, thousands of Syrians waving the opposition’s three-star flag took to the streets—from Berlin to Vienna, London, Stockholm and Istanbul—to celebrate.

Among the revelers was Mazen Al Hamidi, a 29-year-old IT worker, who joined hundreds of Syrians in the German city of Düsseldorf. “I literally cried when I saw the rebels open up the prisons and free up the inmates," said Al Hamidi, whose parents still live in Damascus.

Al Hamidi, who arrived in Germany in 2015 and obtained German citizenship in 2021, said he was planning to return to Syria in the coming years but wanted the country to stabilize first. His brother, who also lives in Germany, is eager to return sooner, he said.

Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees said it was suspending the processing of 47,270 asylum applications from Syrian citizens currently being considered.

“After the fall of the Assad regime, the situation is extraordinarily dynamic, fluid and unclear," a spokesman for the agency said. Germany currently grants protection to almost 90% of Syrian applicants, a position the agency said it might review as the situation stabilizes.

Christian Lindner, who was finance minister until the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ruling coalition last month, called on the government to organize an international conference on Syria to discuss the country’s reconstruction and the possible return of Syrian refugees.

Yet German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said “it wouldn’t be serious in such a situation to speculate" about a return of Syrian refugees. British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the instability in Syria might even result in more people fleeing the country into the U.K. in the short term.

The Syrian rebels have called on the diaspora to return and help rebuild the country: “We will work to create the appropriate conditions and ensure a safe and stable environment to receive them," the HTS militia said in a statement published on its social-media channels.

Footage taken near border crossings in Turkey and Lebanon on Monday showed thousands of people gathering to cross into Syria. Syrians were lining up at the border gate in Reyhanli waiting to cross through a checkpoint set up by the Turkish gendarmerie to process those waiting to leave, Turkey’s state-controlled news agency AA reported on Monday.

Marwan Habub, 27, from Damascus, moved to Turkey in 2015 and now works as a cook in Istanbul. He said he wanted to go home but would first wait for the situation to stabilize.

“I will wait at least six months so that things are put in order in Syria," he said. “I have work here, my social security, work permit, I speak Turkish. This is a second country for me now but I will still go back in the end."

A 32-year-old Syrian in Istanbul said he would return immediately even though he had obtained Turkish citizenship, adding that he was looking forward to visiting Turkey as a tourist.

A UNHCR poll of Syrian refugees in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon conducted this summer showed only a third thought they would be able to return within the next five years, with many citing the state of the Syrian economy as a reason not to return.

If political and economic conditions in Syria stabilize, refugees scattered across the Middle East would be among the first to go back, Knaus predicts, because of their proximity and the low level of support they receive in their host countries. Syrians in the West, especially those who have taken up their host nations’ citizenship, could be more reluctant, he added.

Syrians currently make up the largest group among newly naturalized Germans, with some 75,500 naturalizations last year, up 56% from the previous year, according to German government statistics.

“Austria, Germany, Sweden will have a Syrian community forever," said Knaus. “And that is not a bad thing. Syrians are young, many are well integrated. They could be an asset."

Max Colchester contributed to this article.

Write to Bertrand Benoit at bertrand.benoit@wsj.com