EU invites Taliban to Brussels for talks on sending Afghans home

 The EU is holding rare closed-door talks with the Taliban over deporting Afghan migrants from the bloc.

Afghans make up one of the largest groups of migrants seeking asylum in the EU, but a growing number of governments in the 27-nation bloc want to speed up and increase deportations for those whose claims are rejected or who commit crimes.

Activists said the meeting, scheduled to be held in Brussels on Tuesday, undermined the EU’s human rights obligations because of the Taliban’s draconian restrictions on rights, particularly for women and girls, since it returned to power in 2021 after the US withdrawal.

Malala Yousafzai, 28, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said the Taliban had “erased women and girls from public life”, adding that she was “shaken and deeply disturbed” by the EU’s invitation.

“Europe must not legitimise a regime responsible for one of the worst human rights crises in the world,” said Ms Yousafzai, an education activist, who, aged 15, was shot by Pakistan Taliban militants on her way home from school.

The European Commission invited the five-person delegation to Brussels, despite not formally recognising the hardline Islamist administration.

It is the Taliban’s first visit to the EU institution in the Belgian capital, and comes as Brussels strains to boost deportations and crack down on illegal migration.

On Monday, Belgium said it had issued the delegation five one-day visas “after a security assessment”. The visas are valid only for Belgium and not for the broader free movement Schengen area.

The Taliban delegation was expected to be led by Abdul Qahar Balkhi, the foreign ministry spokesman, and was understood to be flying in and out of Belgium via Turkey.

A commission spokesman said the “technical level” meeting, yet to take place, had been arranged at the request of 20 EU countries and followed a visit by EU officials to Afghanistan in January to explore the feasibility of organising returns.

“The focus of these member states is to return persons who have committed serious crimes or who pose security threats,” Markus Lammert, the European Commission spokesman, told journalists on Tuesday, declining to provide further details of the talks.

Brussels and EU countries have denied that hosting Taliban officials is tantamount to recognising the government in Kabul, but critics said it would renege on the bloc’s values.

European governments shut their embassies in Kabul when the Taliban authorities returned to power and imposed its strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Women must be almost entirely covered when they leave home and are banned from a host of public places, including parks and gyms, while girls’ education stops at age 12.

Earlier this month, Magnus Brunner, the EU’s migration chief, said Brussels had no option other than to talk to the Taliban government about returning irregular migrants from Afghanistan.

European governments have sought a tougher stance on migration as public opinion has hardened, fuelling Right-wing electoral gains across the continent.

EU countries received about a million asylum applications filed by Afghans between 2013 and 2024, according to the bloc’s data agency. About half as many were approved over the period.

Around 20 of the EU’s 27 member states have expressed interest in returning some migrants without a right to stay in Afghanistan.

Some countries have pushed ahead, with Germany deporting more than 100 Afghans with criminal convictions since 2024, via charter flights facilitated by Qatar, and Austria following suit.