European Commission officials invited Taliban representatives to Brussels, citing deportations and a “technical meeting” while critics point to ICC warrants and women’s rights abuses.
Most authorities will use language to mask reality.. Some will lie.. Others will twist and distort and tell you there is nothing to see.. The European Commission shamelessly falls mostly in the latter.. On Tuesday (12 May), the executive reached peak spin-mode, after announcing it had sent an invite for the Taliban to come to Brussels.. Officials insist the move responds to calls from around 20 European ministers urging engagement with the Taliban, framing it
as necessary in order to deport people declared a security risk back to Afghanistan.. Even setting aside security risks and deportation orders, the meeting with the Taliban constitutes a new low for a commission that claims to put human rights front and centre.. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against Taliban leaders, including its so-called chief of justice, while millions of Afghan women and girls live under a draconian gender apartheid imposed by
the very people the commission is now courting.. Throughout, the commission has repeatedly characterised the proposed encounter as a “technical meeting” – in language aimed to deflect its own complicity.. “This does not by any means constitute a recognition,” said Markus Lammert, a commission spokesperson, of the Taliban.. But that is not the point.. While it may be stopping short of formal recognition, it still amounts to a form of legitimisation through cooperation.. In a
further bid to kill the story, Lammert also insisted that the Taliban engagement was “nothing new”, suggesting there was little cause for concern.. Key questions remain: why meet in Brussels?. Who would cover travel and accommodation and to whom exactly was the invitation addressed?. “We are not at this stage yet,” said Lammert, when pressed, noting that the letter of invitation had been sent jointly with the Swedish ministry of justice.. Perhaps the bureaucratic stage
has not yet been met.. But the commission has reached a new level of double‑speak, using language designed to obfuscate while quietly planning to ingratiate the Taliban within its own corridors of power.
European Commission, Taliban engagement, deportation security risks, ICC arrest warrants, Afghan women rights, Brussels meeting