The European Union’s decision to host a Taliban delegation in Brussels on June 23 marked a significant moment in the evolving relationship between Europe and Afghanistan’s de facto rulers.
While European officials stressed that the talks were technical and did not imply diplomatic recognition, the meeting nevertheless represented the first EU-hosted engagement with Taliban representatives on European soil since the movement returned to power in August 2021 in the wake of the US military withdrawal.
Led by Taliban Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi, the five-member delegation met EU officials and representatives of several member states for discussions focused on migration, consular affairs and the return of Afghan nationals whose asylum claims have been rejected.
According to Balkhi, the talks also addressed restoring broader consular services for Afghans living in Europe, confidence-building measures and what he described as a “dignified return process” for Afghan nationals.
Belgian officials emphasized that facilitating the visit reflected Belgium’s obligations as host of EU institutions and should not be interpreted as political recognition of the Taliban government.
Members of the delegation were granted visas with limited territorial validity, and the meeting was held away from official EU premises, underscoring the sensitivity surrounding the talks.
No major agreements emerged from the meeting. Yet the discussions highlighted a central dilemma for European policymakers: how to engage Afghanistan’s de facto authorities while maintaining pressure on security, governance and human rights issues.
Shadow of Doha
The Brussels talks took place against the backdrop of the 2020 Doha Agreement, which shaped international expectations regarding the Taliban during the final phase of the Western military presence in Afghanistan.
Under the agreement, the Taliban committed to preventing Afghan territory from being used against other states, denying sanctuary to terrorist organizations and supporting a political process that would lead to a more inclusive political order.
Nearly six years later, many governments argue that key Taliban commitments remain unfulfilled. Political power remains concentrated within Taliban leadership structures, while meaningful political inclusion has yet to emerge.
Questions surrounding counterterrorism commitments have proven particularly significant. The killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a Taliban-controlled area of Kabul in August 2022 raised serious concerns about assurances that Afghan territory would not serve as a sanctuary for transnational militant actors.
Subsequent assessments by the United Nations Security Council Monitoring Team, the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction and regional security organizations have continued to identify Afghanistan as a permissive environment for multiple extremist groups.
These include Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, Islamic State Khorasan Province, al-Qaeda, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Jamaat Ansarullah.
UN monitoring reports continue to identify more than 20 militant organizations operating in Afghanistan, undermining Taliban claims it has met its counterterrorism commitments.
Why Europe is wavering
Supporters of engagement argue that practical cooperation with Afghanistan’s de facto authorities has become increasingly difficult to avoid. The Taliban controls the institutions responsible for border management, migration procedures and access for international organizations operating inside the country.
Several European governments are facing growing domestic pressure to tighten migration policies and improve the return of individuals whose asylum applications have been rejected.
Afghans remain among the largest groups seeking asylum within the European Union, making migration a politically sensitive issue across much of the continent. The meeting also revealed the domestic pressures shaping European policy.
European Commission officials indicated that the contacts followed requests from member states seeking stronger cooperation on migration and returns.
A majority of EU governments have supported calls for tougher migration policies, reflecting broader concerns over border management and public pressure to increase deportations of individuals whose claims have been rejected.
In this context, contact with Taliban authorities is viewed less as an endorsement than as an attempt to address a practical policy challenge. Any effort to facilitate returns inevitably requires communication with the authorities who control Afghanistan’s borders and with administrative institutions.
Regional powers, including Russia, China, India and several Central Asian states, have expanded contacts with the Taliban, reducing Afghanistan’s international isolation and complicating Europe’s calculations.
Advocates of dialogue argue that limited engagement may provide opportunities to raise concerns regarding migration, security and humanitarian issues while maintaining channels of communication.
Critics, however, warn that practical cooperation can gradually blur the distinction between engagement and legitimacy. The central policy challenge for Europe is therefore not whether communication should occur, but whether it can be structured around clear expectations and measurable outcomes.
Human rights and strategic credibility
The most controversial aspect of the Brussels meeting was not migration policy itself but the broader political environment in which it took place.
Since returning to power, the Taliban have imposed extensive restrictions on women and girls. More than 2.2 million Afghan girls remain excluded from secondary and higher education, while women face severe limitations in employment, public participation and freedom of movement.
These policies have generated growing legal and diplomatic scrutiny. Human rights organizations, legal scholars and several governments increasingly characterize the situation as gender persecution or even gender apartheid.
The meeting prompted criticism from major rights organizations. Human Rights Watch warned that cooperation on deportations risks undermining Europe’s human rights commitments and exposing vulnerable Afghans to renewed danger.
Human Rights Watch researcher Fereshta Abbasi argued that European governments risk weakening their own credibility by condemning Taliban abuses while simultaneously pursuing cooperation on refugee returns.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai similarly argued that any engagement with the Taliban should be judged through the lens of the rights of Afghan women and girls, warning against legitimizing a regime responsible for one of the world’s most severe human rights crises.
Amnesty International also criticized efforts to expand deportation arrangements, arguing that Afghanistan remains unsafe for many returnees. International bodies continue documenting allegations of arbitrary detention, restrictions on civil liberties and media, and other human rights violations.
The human rights dimension intersects directly with migration. Many of the factors driving Afghans to seek refuge abroad are linked to the political, social and economic conditions that have emerged since the Taliban’s takeover in 2021.
Afghanistan is also in the midst of a severe humanitarian crisis. According to international aid agencies, more than 17 million Afghans face acute food insecurity, while the country is simultaneously attempting to absorb large numbers of returnees from neighboring Pakistan and Iran.
These challenges have been compounded by economic isolation, governance shortcomings and the return of millions of Afghans from neighboring countries over the past year.
Question of credibility
For the EU, the implications extend well beyond Afghanistan. The bloc has consistently presented itself as a defender of international law, human rights and rules-based governance. Its approach toward the Taliban will thus be evaluated not only in terms of policy effectiveness but also through the lens of strategic credibility.
The Brussels meeting signals a new phase in Europe’s approach. The debate is no longer whether engagement with the Taliban should occur, but rather how it should be structured and under what conditions.
The success of Europe’s approach will depend on whether engagement remains tied to measurable benchmarks on counterterrorism, human rights and governance rather than evolving into normalization by default. Without clear conditions and verifiable progress, Europe risks expanding contact while diminishing its leverage.
Whether the Brussels meeting becomes a model for conditional engagement or the beginning of gradual normalization remains to be seen. How Europe manages that balance may shape not only its future relationship with Afghanistan, but also the credibility of its broader commitment to a values-based foreign policy.
Saima Afzal is a researcher specializing in South Asian security, counterterrorism, and broader geopolitical dynamics across the Middle East, Afghanistan, and the Indo-Pacific. She is currently a research scholar at Justus Liebig University, Germany.
The EU formed to Join relatively small and quite divergent independent nations into a broader and more powerful socio/economic union … The US, nor any other, was not, is not and should never be sovereign to it …
The reason for Afghanistan’s social backwardness is poverty. Generally speaking, the richer a country becomes the more liberal they get. The Taliban leadership are educated—one hopes—but the rank and file are rustics mainly. Without economic progress social progress is impossible. Anyone interested in the welfare of the Afghans should concentrate on the countryside to raise production and living standards. They need a process like the rural United States went through in the 1930s. Electrification, farm machinery, irrigation schemes, price floors for crops, etc. When rural Afghan women are using household appliances we take for granted, the writing will be on the wall for male oppression.