Taliban delegation expected in Brussels for EU talks on Afghan returns

Europe’s tougher deportation politics has reached an operational compromise: governments want Afghan removals to work, and the paperwork runs through the Taliban. Belgium issued five one-day visas, valid only on Belgian territory, for Taliban representatives to attend a Commission-organised return meeting in Brussels after security checks, according to BRUZZ. The visas exposed the practical edge of a European policy that refuses recognition while seeking cooperation.

Brussels Hosted The Trade-Off

Belgium was not the political driver. The meeting followed Commission contacts with Afghanistan’s de facto authorities and pressure from about 20 EU and Schengen-associated countries looking for workable Afghan return channels, El País reported.

Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot tried to separate hosting from endorsement. Belgium would not have invited the Taliban itself, he argued, but Brussels hosts EU institutions, and Belgium had to process the consular file for their guests, according to Belga.

That line has a legal basis, but it is politically thin. The Visa Code’s Article 25 lets a member state issue a territorially limited visa, meaning access to one country rather than full Schengen movement. A one-day Belgian visa does not recognise the Taliban government. It still brings Taliban representatives into the EU’s institutional capital to discuss deportation logistics.

Paperwork Gives Kabul Leverage

The Commission’s argument is practical. Member states can issue deportation orders, but Afghanistan’s authorities control identity checks, travel documents and airport acceptance. A return order without cooperation at the other end often stays paper.

That is why the Brussels meeting matters beyond Belgium. It turns non-recognition into a working problem: how much contact can Brussels build before logistics becomes legitimation?

The pressure behind the contact is not marginal. Eurostat recorded 669,710 first-time asylum applications in the EU in 2025, with Afghans the second-largest nationality group at 63,900 applications and 9.5 percent of the total, according to Eurostat. Days later, Parliament backed the new return regime on 17 June 2026 by 418 votes to 218, with 30 abstentions, the European Parliament said. The vote matters because it raised the political promise: more final decisions should lead to actual removals.

Germany shows the mechanics. After Western embassies closed in Kabul, Berlin used Qatar as an intermediary for an Afghanistan deportation flight in August 2024, then moved toward more direct arrangements by 2026, according to Tagesschau. The dependency is simple. If Kabul does not confirm identity, accept documents and receive people at the airport, European ministers cannot deliver the removals they announce.

That gives the Taliban leverage without recognition. European governments may gain a route for hard cases, especially people presented as serious offenders or security risks. The Taliban gain visibility and a foothold in a process Europe says is only administrative. The unresolved question is whether this stays a narrow channel for exceptional cases or becomes the base of a broader Afghan returns system.

Rights Remain The Limit

The rights objection is not just about appearances. Article 19 of the EU Charter bars removal where someone faces a serious risk of death penalty, torture or inhuman or degrading treatment, as the Charter states. A criminal conviction does not erase that legal floor.

Afghanistan makes those judgments especially hard. Human Rights Watch documents Taliban restrictions on women and girls, abuses against activists and journalists, and risks for vulnerable groups in its Afghanistan reporting. OHCHR warned in May 2025 that forced returns to Afghanistan can expose people to arbitrary arrest, torture, ill-treatment and reprisals, especially women and girls and people linked to the former government, in a UN rights warning. Amnesty urged the EU in June 2026 to stop readmission talks with the Taliban, arguing that Afghanistan cannot be treated as safe for returns, in its statement.

The missing piece is accountability. Governments have not shown, country by country, how many Afghan return orders exist, how many fail for lack of documents, how many fail because of protection risks, and what happens after return. Until they do, the “technical” channel will stay contested: a tool for enforcing final decisions to its supporters, and a quiet route to normalisation to its critics.