EU invites Taliban to Brussels for deportation talks despite non-recognition

The European Commission has invited a delegation from the Taliban administration to Brussels next month to negotiate the return of Afghan nationals who have no right to stay in the European Union. The move marks the first formal engagement at this level since the Islamist group seized power in Kabul in August 2021, and it comes despite the EU's continued refusal to recognise the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

A delegation led by the Taliban's public face

The visiting group will be headed by Abdul Qahar Balkhi, the Taliban Foreign Ministry's English-language spokesperson, who has become the regime's most visible representative in international media. According to European sources, the delegation will meet senior officials from the Commission, the European External Action Service (EEAS) and representatives of several member states. Sweden is helping to coordinate the contacts. The meeting, still being finalised, is expected to focus on what diplomats describe as "practical and diplomatic" ways to increase removals, particularly of people with criminal records.

The invitation follows a earlier "technical" meeting between EU officials and Taliban representatives in Afghanistan, described by the Commission as a preliminary step. That such talks are happening at all represents a significant shift. For years the EU's position was that engagement with the Taliban would be limited to humanitarian coordination and that any political dialogue would require progress on human rights, notably the rights of women and girls. The June meeting signals that migration enforcement has overtaken those conditions as the immediate priority.

The numbers driving the policy

The statistical backdrop is stark. Data from the EU Asylum Agency show that Afghan nationals lodged 17,000 asylum applications across the bloc in 2025, more than any other nationality. At the same time, the Commission maintains that only about 20 percent of people subject to a final deportation order are actually returned. Officials describe that ratio as "unacceptable" and have made increasing the return rate a central pillar of the EU's migration strategy.

The pressure for action comes from capitals. Roughly 20 member states, among them Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland, signed a letter urging the Commission to find ways to step up returns to Afghanistan. Spain notably did not sign. Germany, where a journalistic investigation recently revealed that transfers to Afghanistan have already increased, is also reported to be considering a bilateral agreement with the Taliban administration.

Parliamentary outrage and the limits of influence

The reaction in the European Parliament has been sharp. Juan Fernando López Aguilar, a Socialist MEP who sits on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), said he reacted with "astonishment" and "outrage" to the news. His group intends to force a plenary debate, although the chamber's agenda since the 2024 elections has been dominated by the right. López Aguilar put the contradiction bluntly: "How low has the European Commission fallen, entirely subordinated to the ultraconservative majority of the Council, inviting the Taliban to Brussels to discuss how to repatriate Afghans without any security, without any guarantee of respect for their rights, without any consideration of human rights."

The Parliament's own recent record makes the tension plain. In 2024 and 2025 it passed resolutions condemning the Taliban for what it termed "gender apartheid", demanding the immediate lifting of restrictions on women, the release of detainees and increased humanitarian aid. Those resolutions now sit alongside an executive initiative that treats the same regime as a functional partner in migration management.

Human rights and legal challenges

Rights organisations argue that the engagement is not merely symbolic but legally dangerous. Amnesty International said the "rush by the EU and its member states to forcibly return people to Afghanistan at any cost is illegal and out of touch with reality", adding that it "ignores the reasons why these people fled and the grave dangers they face if returned" and violates the binding principle of non-refoulement. Chiara Catelli of the International Platform for Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM) warned that the talks reflect a broader pattern: member states seeking deportation agreements with third countries regardless of their human-rights records. She pointed to a similar, abortive effort with Syria before the fall of Bashar al-Assad, and noted that dialogue with the new authorities in Damascus has since reopened partly to encourage Syrian returns.

The Council of Europe has also raised the alarm, warning of the risk of prolonged detention, restrictions on the right to appeal, and deportations to countries that cannot be considered safe. These concerns are not abstract: the Taliban's justice system operates without due-process guarantees recognised in international law, and women and girls face systematic exclusion from education, employment and public life.

The legislative engine: Return Regulation and externalisation

The Taliban meeting is one element of a larger legislative and operational push. Since 2024 the EU has accelerated a hard-line turn that includes the Migration and Asylum Pact and, now in its final stages, the Return Regulation. That regulation would expand the grounds and duration of immigration detention, weaken procedural safeguards in return procedures, allow family separation, and permit transfers to countries with which the returnee has no previous connection, a concept known as "safe third country" or "safe country of origin" designation applied far more broadly than before.

The externalisation logic is also advancing. Italy's protocol with Albania, under which asylum seekers intercepted at sea are processed in Albanian territory, is being studied as a model by several other governments. The Commission has not ruled out similar arrangements elsewhere. López Aguilar sees a coherent picture: "Europe's drift toward sealing itself off, a trend that also includes the Return Regulation and the flirtation by some countries with opening deportation centres outside EU territory."

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