Europe has millions of Syrians who claimed refugee status on the basis of the Assad family, now some are making the calculation it is cheaper in the long run to make a a single cash payment to go home than keep the guests on social welfare programmes indefinitely.

Austria will offer Syrians a €1,000 ($1,000) cash payment “return bonus” to go home, Chancellor Karl Nehammer has said, stating the clearest reason they had for claiming asylum in the first place has now gone. Kronen Zeitung cites Nehammer as having said in a podcast this week: “We are now helping everyone who wants to return voluntarily. There is up to 1,000 euros for this.

The offer of payment to go home has triggered criticism from different quarters. For the anti-mass migration Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) leader Herbert Kickl, it is a scandal to offer even more money to ex-refugees when they have already enjoyed a great deal of largess from Austrian taxpayers. “It is a slap in the face of our own population, which is suffering from extreme inflation”, he said, saying rather than paying volunteers the state should get on with a “focus on remigration”, ending refugee status held by individuals who had fled defunct conflicts, and deportations.

The Archbishop of Vienna, on the other hand, expressed his “dismay” at the offer, saying refugees should be treated with more compassion, and that they should only be expected to return “when peace and justice reign at home again”.

In Germany, such self-deportation payments aren’t official yet, but the snap federal election is now on the horizon and the leader of the top-polling party — The CDU once led by Angela Merkel, which is apparently working hard to show it has learnt from her open borders mistakes — has said he also wants €1,000 golden goodbyes. Further, he said, if elected the German government would charter return jets and hand out free seats to those who wanted them.

Yet elsewhere even more money is on the table. Bild notes Denmark is offering each Syrian adult a mighty 200,000 kronor (€27,000, $28,300, £22,400) to leave, and each Syrian child 50,000kr (€6,700, $7,000, £5,500) under its repatriation law.

This cash has actually been available for years, but hasn’t had many takers so far. The paper cites Denmark’s Social Democratic Integration Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek who explained: “almost 600 Syrians with legal residence have been voluntarily repatriated from Denmark to Syria since 2019 with financial support under the Repatriation Act. I hope that, in view of the new developments, even more people will make use of the offer.”

The newspaper notes that if every single of the 45,000 Syrian migrants in Denmark took up the offer at once it would cost billions, but states it is still good value for money for taxpayers, claiming:

Many Syrians in Denmark do not work. Financially, it is more attractive for Denmark to pay them return money. None of the center parties has so far raised a scandal about the high sum of 27,000 euros per adult.

The United Kingdom, which has a new left-wing government has been more circumspect over the changes in Syria over the past week, stating it would be taking a wait-and-see approach before taking any decisions. It would seek to “facilitate” and Syrians who do want to go home, however, the Minister for Border Security and Asylum has said.