Overview
- On Tuesday 23 June the European Commission received a five-person Taliban delegation in Brussels on Belgium one-day visas, with about 15 member states taking part in talks organized as technical contacts.
- EU officials said the meetings focused on identifying people for return, issuing travel documents and re-establishing consular services needed to carry out deportations from EU countries.
- Germany separately confirmed it is expanding bilateral technical ties by allowing more Taliban consular staff into Germany and preparing regular charter flights of up to three per month to increase removals.
- Human-rights groups, some MEPs and the UN rights office sharply condemned the contacts as effectively granting legitimacy to an abusive regime and warned that returns could expose people to arbitrary detention, torture or deprivation.
- The Brussels visit follows a January EU delegation trip to Kabul and a October 2025 request from about 20 member states for coordinated returns, and it risks deepening splits in the EU over law, human-rights safeguards and national deportation plans.