Welcoming persecutors : the Commission's Afghan mistake
Renew Europe strongly condemns the European Commission's decision to invite Taliban representatives to Brussels and calls on the Commission to immediately reverse this decision.
The Taliban have systematically dismantled every right of Afghan women and girls. Over 150 edicts have banned girls from school beyond sixth grade, stripped women of employment, freedom of movement and access to justice. In 2025 alone, at least 170 women were publicly flogged.
Recently, the Taliban's adopted a new Criminal Procedure Code for Courts, strongly condemned by the EP resolution voted today, that legalises domestic violence, criminalises women who seek protection from abuse, and imposes corporal punishment amounting to torture.
These are not abstract policies. They are deliberate tools of dehumanisation. The ICC has issued arrest warrants against senior Taliban leaders for crimes against humanity on grounds of gender persecution. These are not interlocutors - they are persecutors.
Against this backdrop, inviting a Taliban delegation to Brussels - whatever the stated purpose - amounts to granting official status to criminals. The Commission may frame this as pragmatic engagement on migration issues. But Realpolitik has its limits. You cannot negotiate with persecutors without legitimising them.
Renew MEP Raquel García Hermida-van der Walle (D66, Netherlands), Chair of the Delegation for the relations with Afghanistan, stated :
"Inviting a Taliban delegation to Brussels to discuss migration is a betrayal of our values. The Taliban receive the privilege of dealmaking with the entire European Union and some seem fine with it. Yes, getting migration under control is important, but so is maintaining a minimum of decency and standards. Europeans died to give women and girls their rights. So no, don't legitimize the Taliban - ever. Those who carry out crimes against humanity should never set foot on European soil without passing through the International Criminal Court in The Hague first."
Raquel García Hermida-Van Der WalleRenew Europe MEP, Netherlands, Democraten 66
The European Union is founded on the indivisibility of human rights. A "pragmatic approach" that tramples on those values is not pragmatism - it is a political and moral failure.
Renew Europe urges the Commission to cancel this meeting, uphold the EU's non-recognition policy towards the Taliban, and place respect for women's rights at the centre of any engagement with Afghanistan.