Reactions across European states to the takeover of power by the Taliban in Afghanistan are markedly ambivalent. Politicians admit failing to speedily process admission for those Afghan employees who worked directly for European governments, while warning against irregular migration flows from Afghanistan and a repeat of the so-called 'open-door' policies seen in 2015.
The fact that people flee military interventions and wars is unavoidable. What must be avoided, however, is the collapse of the asylum systems of EU member states and the shameful lack of financial support to third countries catering for refugees. Indeed, the more than 10,000 drowned refugees in the Mediterranean since 2015 must not be repeated – and there is an obvious solution: the establishment of legal and safe pathways to Europe for Afghans in need of protection.
Entangled sovereignty
Perhaps even more clearly than in other conflicts, the war in Afghanistan demonstrates how closely the exercise of sovereign powers by European states is entangled with the lives of the local population. Military intervention by one state in another state is the exercise of a state’s sovereign powers, irrespective of whether that intervention is contrary to or in accordance with international law.
