Debate: Situation in Afghanistan
Date: TUESDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER 2021
Speaker: Josep Borrell Fontelles
Language: EN

If we want to look at Afghanistan after the end of August, we have to look at it from these three points of view: as the Afghan people’s tragedy, as a Western setback and, for the whole world, a change in international relations.  We have all seen the collapse of the Afghan army and the government and the takeover by the Taliban in less than ten days. Since the Taliban announced their interim government, which is neither inclusive nor representative and includes people who are on the United Nations sanctions list, we know what we can expect from them.  Our initial focus was on evacuations. The European Union’s efforts to provide protection for Afghans most in need was important, but insufficient, and it has to continue. The Afghan crisis is not over. The European Union’s Foreign and Defence Ministers have discussed how to operate in the months ahead. They have charged me and the External Action Service to try to coordinate their efforts in order to evacuate some European Union nationals who are still there, some members of our former staff who are still there, and many other Afghans who have been engaging in building a democratic and free Afghanistan, according to our values and with our support. And now we have to give them as much protection as we can.  So the question now is how to deal with the new Government and what we can do in the wider region, but we also have to look, with an important self—criticism, at the lessons that we can learn on state—building efforts elsewhere in the world. Because what has happened in Afghanistan should teach us a lot about this exercise of state-building, which is much more difficult than what President Bush could have imagined before the invasion of Iraq. What does it mean for our relations with the US? What does it mean for the development of a European strategic autonomy, for our security and for our defence policy, and Afghanistan itself? A dramatic humanitarian situation in the country lies ahead. Food prices are rising. The financial system is in freefall. The Commission has decided to multiply by four our help from EUR 50 to EUR  200 million, four times more, but still a drop in the ocean. Commissioner Lenarčič confirmed that the meeting with United Nations Secretary—General Guterres convened yesterday, was a success from the point of view of the financial resources raised, and we will try to stay and deliver.  We also know that many people at risk want to leave the country. We have to help them. To have any chance of influencing events, we have no other option but to engage with the Taliban. Engaging doesn’t mean recognition – no – but engaging means talking, discussing and agreeing when possible.  With the Ministers and the Council, we agreed that the level and nature of this engagement will depend on the actions of the new government on the following five benchmarks, benchmarks that have to be used in order to calibrate how the new government behaves and, according to their behaviour, how we engage with them. Nothing original. You know very well what I am talking about. We haven’t invented anything extraordinarily new, but we have to have some benchmark. The first benchmark is for Afghanistan not to be a base for the export of terrorism to other countries. The second is respect for human rights, in particular for women’s rights, the rule of law and freedom of the media. Maybe you believe that I am mentioning a kind of oxymoron because to talk about human rights from the Taliban side may be a pure oxymoron, but this is what we have to ask them. The establishment of an inclusive and representative transitional government, which, by the first sign, has not been fulfilled at all. Free access for humanitarian aid and allowing the departure of foreign nationals and Afghans at risk who wish to leave the country, as already decided by the United Nations and in line with the commitments made by the Taliban themselves. This last benchmark was strongly discussed among the ministers because nobody wants our offer to provide protection to the Afghans at risk to be considered a kind of ‘call effect’, as some ministers understand happened in 2015—2016 during the Syrian crisis. No, we don’t want to create a call effect, but we want to protect a lot of Afghan people that deserve our protection, and there are many of them. We have to discuss with the Taliban how we can offer and make effective these protections. In order to implement these benchmarks, we agreed to coordinate our contact with the Taliban, and we are considering a European Union presence in Kabul coordinated by the External Action Service. In fact, our delegation there has never been closed. The embassies of the Member States have been closed and are not going to reopen, but we still have a delegation, which is not an embassy – since we are not a state – and can be used as an anthem if the security conditions are met in order to discuss with the government in a closer way than through videoconference or messages. It’s clear that we need to engage more with Afghanistan’s neighbours and regional actors. So we therefore agreed in the Council to task the External Action Service to coordinate the efforts of the European Union in strengthening our regional outreach and trying to convene a regional political platform for cooperation among Afghanistan’s neighbours at ministerial level. We will do that during the next UN General Assembly (UNGA) week. Certainly, all Ministers of the European Union are doing their duty and travelling to the region, to the neighbours, but I think we need that kind of coordination among us. It would be much easier if, instead of 27, we could speak with one voice. We will never substitute the efforts of the ministers of the Member States, but we should try to coordinate them. The regional context is highly complex with competing agendas among the main players but, amid the rivalries, there are also joint interests and there is a compelling need for more regional approaches to work in front of the population flows that will be happening. It will happen. Nobody knows how big they will be – not as big as in the Syrian war – but it will depend on the evolution of the situation in the country. We have to prevent the increase of terrorism and fight against organised crime, including drug trafficking and people trafficking. We are already working for a resettlement forum. My colleague, the Commissioner in charge of Home Affairs, is working hard to organise a resettlement forum in order to share these people when they are on the move – and they will be on the move if the Taliban allows them to be.  So these are the action tracks. This is the action that I will be in charge of developing in the coming months together – Team Europe, the External Action Service, the Commission and Member States. It will be difficult, but I think that all together we can do better than each one on their side. Later, we have to continue discussing the lessons that we can learn, and I think that an evaluation has to be done, not just to talk about it, but to engage seriously on an evaluation. We talk a lot about public policy evaluation. Well, this is a case for public policy evaluation. What has gone wrong? Not in the last 20 days, but in the last 20 years, since the beginning of the occupation. Because I am sure that a lot can be learned for future actions in other parts of the world where we are engaged. I hope that this discussion today will help to understand better what is happening and to engage positively on the answer that the Afghans are waiting for from us.