The Taliban’s Brussels bargain: Trading normalization for deportation

Last month, Belgium granted a one-day visa to a Taliban delegation representing the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (whose current government remains unrecognized internationally), allowing it access to the European Union headquarters. 

Since seizing power in Kabul in August 2021 — after the collapse of the Western-backed government and the withdrawal of US forces — the Taliban had never before been invited to Brussels. This time, however, it was invited not as a recognized government, but as a partner Europe considered necessary to facilitate the deportation of Afghan nationals. The unprecedented visit illustrates how deportation and border control are reshaping Europe’s external relations, and creating new opportunities for internationally isolated governments to gain diplomatic access.

The Taliban delegation arrived in Brussels, the seat of the European Union, on June 23, 2026, for talks with officials from the European Commission and several member states.

Abdul Qahar Balkhi, spokesperson for the Taliban government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a member of the delegation, said the visit focused on “resuming the provision of a broad range of consular services for Afghans in European Union countries.” He added that the talks also covered “the need for confidence-building measures, a consular presence, and a dignified return process.”

European Commission spokespeople, however, said the visit was held in response to a request from 19 member states, as well as Norway, with the aim of opening communication channels with the Taliban to facilitate the return of Afghans convicted of criminal offences or involved in serious crimes.

Officials said this process began in January 2026, when a European delegation met Taliban officials in Kabul, prompting the Commission to arrange the follow-up meeting in Brussels.

The fine line between “technical” and “political”

As expected, the visit drew criticism from both human rights organizations and European lawmakers alike. Many saw this as a step towards granting the Taliban political legitimacy, despite the severe restrictions the movement continues to impose on women and girls, and concerns that deportees returned to Afghanistan could face the risk of human rights abuses.

The Taliban’s human rights record remains one of the biggest obstacles to international recognition. In particular, the movement has imposed a system that UN experts and human rights organizations describe as a form of “gender apartheid.”

Although the European Commission insisted that the meeting was “technical” and did not constitute formal recognition of Taliban rule, critics argued that the distinction between the “technical” and the “political” is increasingly difficult to sustain, particularly in discussions about migration—one of the most politically consequential issues in Europe today.

Deportation has become part of the public language of European politics

Migration is no longer a secondary issue in the EU’s external relations; it has become the central issue shaping its relations with countries of origin and transit, including de facto authorities that lack international recognition.

Since the 2015 refugee crisis, Brussels has viewed migration as a test of its ability to protect its borders, contain the rise of the far right, and preserve its internal cohesion, rather than as merely a humanitarian or administrative issue. As a result, combating irregular migration, accelerating deportations, and cooperating with countries of origin and transit have become unspoken conditions in many European partnerships. Aid, trade, visas, security cooperation, and diplomatic engagement are now managed, at least in part, according to the ability of the relevant state or authority to either prevent migrants from reaching Europe or to accept their return.

This shift became evident in June 2026, when the European Parliament approved amendments that make it easier to detain irregular migrants, including in centers outside Europe, and that speed return procedures. During the vote, a group of lawmakers from the European political right chanted slogans calling for migrants to be sent back to their home countries, in a scene that encapsulated the extent to which deportation has become part of the public language of European politics rather than merely an administrative procedure carried out away from the public eye.

The pragmatism of “dealing the world as it is”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s remarks last year about the need to “deal with the world as it is,” appear to reflect an increasingly influential European logic: there is no realistic alternative to Taliban rule in the foreseeable future, and little Western appetite to re-engage in Afghanistan after a 20-year war that ended with the movement’s return to power.

From this perspective, engaging with the Taliban—even under the limited label of technical cooperation—becomes a practical option if Europe wishes to implement its return policies.

The Taliban seeks to turn migration and deportation into a practical pathway to breaking its isolation

The Taliban is also not the first unrecognized authority that Europe has found itself compelled to engage with under pressure from migration.

In July 2025, European Commissioner for Migration Magnus Brunner, accompanied by ministers from Italy, Malta, and Greece, attempted to visit Benghazi to meet with the eastern Libyan authorities affiliated with Khalifa Haftar, against the backdrop of rising migration from Libya’s eastern coast to Greece.

Although the visit failed because of a “diplomatic row,” it revealed an increasingly familiar European logic: when controlling migration routes becomes the priority, the question of legal recognition recedes into the background, and engaging with de facto authorities becomes a practical choice—even if doing so grants them political weight they do not formally possess.

Influence through the gateway of migration

For the Taliban, migration appears a political opportunity ripe for the taking. Although the movement controls most of Afghanistan, it has failed to secure broad international recognition, with Russia becoming the only country to formally recognize the Taliban government in 2025.

According to the UNHCR, the number of Afghan refugees abroad reached around 2.6 million by the end of 2025, the majority of them in Iran and Pakistan, with another 3.5 million people internally displaced.

In Europe, Afghans were the second-largest nationality represented in asylum systems across EU member states and Schengen-associated countries during 2025, after Venezuelans. The European Union’s office of statistics also recorded around 60,000 Afghans living in the bloc without legal residency that same year.

Against this backdrop, the Taliban has sought to turn migration and deportation into a practical means of breaking its isolation without making substantive concessions on human rights, particularly women’s rights.

The movement also recognizes that relations with Russia, China, and neighboring countries cannot fully compensate for the financial and diplomatic losses resulting from the suspension of Western aid, the freezing of assets, and sanctions. It therefore sees growing European pressure to deport Afghans whose asylum applications have been rejected as an opportunity to establish direct channels of communication with Western governments and present itself as an indispensable partner in managing migration and maintaining security.

Indeed, the Taliban has already begun to chip away at its isolation in Europe, starting with Germany. Since July 2025, Berlin has deported dozens of Afghan nationals convicted of criminal offences to Kabul, in coordination with Qatar, before moving toward broader, direct coordination with the Taliban itself over the return of deportees.

At the same time, Germany accepted the accreditation of Taliban-linked consular officials to work within the Afghan missions in Berlin and Bonn, giving the movement an institutional foothold within Afghanistan’s consular representation in Germany. Subsequent media reports indicated additional Taliban representatives had since been accepted as well.

Outside the European Union, the UK’s Reform Party, led by Nigel Farage, has proposed a similar approach: financing return agreements with governments and authorities—including the Taliban—in exchange for accepting deportees.

This is why Brussels has acquired particular importance for the movement, especially since it does not control the Afghan embassy there and lacks direct representation in most European capitals. Cooperation on deportation therefore offers a potential avenue for expanding its consular and political presence.

In this sense, the Brussels visit reveals something that goes beyond the relationship between Europe and the Taliban. It demonstrates how return policies, deportation, and border control have become bargaining chips that allow governments and de facto authorities—from Libya to Afghanistan—to exchange their cooperation for various forms of support, recognition, or diplomatic engagement.

The path to normalization no longer begins with human rights or counterterrorism, but with a narrower—yet far more consequential—question in contemporary European politics: Who is willing to accept deportees the EU wants gone?