Rights campaigners and MEPs have warned that a meeting between EU officials and a Taliban delegation in Brussels risks normalising a regime that has banned girls from school beyond the sixth grade and sought to erase women from public life, while its ranks include two leaders accused of crimes against humanity, reports Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.
A spokesperson for the Afghan foreign ministry confirmed that a delegation representing the Taliban had travelled to Brussels after the Belgian foreign ministry issued five single-day visas. It was the first time the EU had hosted the group since the Taliban's return to power in 2021.
Tuesday's agenda included discussions on the possible resumption of consular services for Afghans in the EU, consular presence as well as "the need for trust-building measures", Abdul Qahar Balkhi said in a statement.
The visit was denounced by campaigners, who said that building ties with the Taliban flew in the face of the EU's values. "The Taliban have erased women and girls from public life," said the Nobel peace prize laureate Malala Yousafzai – who was shot by Pakistan Taliban militants at the age of 15 – adding that she was "shaken and deeply disturbed" by the EU's invitation.
The European Commission confirmed weeks ago that it had been in talks with the Taliban since January to discuss how to scale up the deportation of Afghan migrants. The willingness of EU officials to cooperate with the Taliban – who in 2024 banned women from speaking or showing their faces outside their home – contrasts sharply with the messaging of the European parliament, where MEPs have repeatedly backed resolutions condemning the regime, said the Socialist MEP Juan Fernando López Aguilar. "I'm appalled," he said. "It's absolutely an outrage and a total loss of faith and the credibility of the European Union that it can hold such a double standard."
Two senior Taliban leaders are subject to arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court, which has accused them of crimes against humanity for the persecution of women and girls. The EU has imposed sanctions on several individuals associated with the regime.
In May, a spokesperson for the European Commission said the meeting with the Taliban had been coordinated with Sweden after 20 member states had called for concrete pathways to deport Afghans without legal residence permits or who are deemed a security risk. The rationale was rejected by López Aguilar, who instead accused the EU of allowing the far right and its rhetoric around immigration to set the agenda.
Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, hundreds of thousands of Afghans have sought asylum in Europe. Across the continent, the lives they have carved out have become increasingly precarious as the discourse on migration hardens, with many EU member states seemingly ready to overlook the risks of carrying out deportations to a country in the grip of a humanitarian and human rights crisis. About 40% of the population in Afghanistan is affected by hunger, according to the International Rescue Committee. Lisa Owen, the organisation's Afghanistan country director, said: "Deporting Afghans back to a country where almost half of the population cannot feed themselves is not a migration policy; it is a decision that could cost lives."
The message was echoed in an open letter, in which 83 Afghan and international human rights groups expressed grave concerns about the EU's intentions. "Afghanistan is currently one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman, and forced return would expose many to persecution, violence and severe deprivation of rights," it noted.
While the EU has said that the meeting in no way constitutes a recognition of the Taliban, what is playing out is something far worse, said Shagofah Ghafori, of the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies. "What Brussels is offering instead is something more insidious: normalisation. And normalisation doesn't require a signed treaty. It happens incrementally, through granting visas, meeting rooms and the quiet replacement of principle with transaction," Ghafori wrote.
A report published by the UN last year found that many Afghans who were returned to the country, most of them by Pakistan and Iran, experienced arbitrary arrest, detention, torture and ill treatment at the hands of the authorities. The finding suggests that deportations to Afghanistan could trample on the EU's international obligations.