A five-man Afghan Taliban delegation met with EU staff representing 15 member states in Brussels, Belgium, for closed-door talks on the logistics of repatriating Afghan migrants deported by European governments, AP reported on June 23. EU and Belgian officials emphasized the meeting did not confer recognition or legitimacy to the Afghan Taliban, even as rights groups decried the talks as undermining EU credibility on protecting human rights and potentially endangering migrants.

The meeting comes nearly two weeks after the European Union's Migration and Asylum Pact entered into force on June 12, introducing new screening procedures and accelerating the return of rejected asylum seekers. A spokesperson for the European Commission said the bloc has faced pressure from most member states to accelerate migrant deportations, with 20 of the bloc's 27 members signing an October 2025 letter affirming this. Representatives from the Afghan Taliban and the European Union previously met in January in Kabul, Afghanistan, where the two sides similarly discussed logistics surrounding the return of deported Afghan migrants; individual European countries, including Germany, have also held separate bilateral talks with Afghanistan.