By Amina Ismail<\/p>\n
BRUSSELS, May 12 (Reuters) – The European Commission is planning a first meeting with Taliban officials in Brussels on ways to deport some Afghan migrants, despite warnings from human \u200crights groups that such engagement could endanger Afghans and violate core EU values.<\/p>\n
Western countries have \u200crefused to recognise the Taliban since the hardline Islamist group regained power in Afghanistan in 2021, overthrowing a U.S.- and NATO-backed government.<\/p>\n
Commission \u200bspokesman Markus Lammert said on Tuesday the planned meeting was being coordinated with Sweden, at the request of several other member states, but no date had yet been set.<\/p>\n
The EU executive Commission and the Swedish Justice Ministry “sent a letter to the de facto authorities in Afghanistan to inquire about their availability for a meeting at \u200ctechnical level in Brussels”, Lammert told \u2060reporters.<\/p>\n
The focus, he said, was on the return of people “who pose a security threat” and such a meeting would not imply EU recognition of the Taliban government. EU \u2060officials previously held talks with the Taliban in Kabul in January, Lammert added.<\/p>\n
The Swedish government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
RIGHTS GROUPS CRITICISE EU MOVE<\/p>\n
Rights groups say engaging the Taliban on migration undermines EU principles \u200band have \u200burged the bloc to prioritise protection of Afghan refugees \u200bover deportations.<\/p>\n
“It is deeply alarming that discussions \u200care taking place about deporting Afghans back to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan,” said Reshad Jalali, Senior Policy Officer at the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), citing risks of persecution and violations of the principle of non-refoulement.<\/p>\n
Taliban authorities have rolled back rights since 2021, restricting women\u2019s movement and barring girls from education beyond primary school, while enforcing morality laws that limit expression and employment.<\/p>\n
“Deporting people to such conditions risks making the EU complicit \u200cin exposing them to danger and abuse,” Jalali said.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of \u200bthousands of Afghans have sought asylum in Europe since the Taliban \u200btakeover. EU law allows for deportations of \u200bpeople convicted of serious crimes or deemed security threats in certain cases, but returns \u200cto Afghanistan have been limited due to \u200bthe lack of diplomatic relations.<\/p>\n
Although \u200bAfghans are among the nationalities with the highest asylum recognition rates in the EU, overall acceptance has tightened as migration policies become more restrictive.<\/p>\n
Afghanistan is currently mired in a deep humanitarian crisis. \u200bAccording to the U.N. World Food \u200cProgramme, more than 17 million people are “food insecure”, while the country is absorbing tens of \u200bthousands of returnees from Iran and Pakistan.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Amina Ismail, Charlotte Van Campenhout, Layli Faroudi \u200band Essi LehtoEditing by Peter Graff and Gareth Jones)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Amina Ismail BRUSSELS, May 12 (Reuters) – The European Commission is planning a first meeting with Taliban…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[29558,183,211,210,42890,42888,42889,8589,11852],"class_list":{"0":"post-80593","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brussels","8":"tag-afghan-refugees","9":"tag-afghanistan","10":"tag-belgium","11":"tag-brussels","12":"tag-human-rights-groups","13":"tag-markus-lammert","14":"tag-swedish-justice-ministry","15":"tag-taliban","16":"tag-the-european-commission"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116561876645639586","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}