Germany’s leadership does not officially recognize the Taliban government in Afghanistan, but that doesn’t stop it from associating with the pariah regime to gain something he desperately wants, highlights Politico in its analysis.

As Germany and other EU states step up efforts to crack down on immigration, European leaders are considering ways to deport Afghan migrants to Afghanistan in large numbers. In exchange for the Taliban’s cooperation, Germany in particular is giving the regime – which is only officially recognized by Moscow – something it desperately wants: legalization.

Germany is leading the push within the EU to cement ties with the Taliban government – and its leaders believe other European nations are likely to follow. The push comes as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives, under political pressure from the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, have repeatedly pledged to deport more migrants, including Afghans, who make up Germany’s second largest group of asylum seekers after Syrians.

However, the lack of diplomatic relations with the Taliban has so far hindered Mertz’s plans, forcing his government to take an unprecedented step.

“Very soon we will have an agreement that will allow us to regularly repatriate people to Afghanistan on scheduled flights,” German Interior Minister Alexander Dobridt said earlier this month. His ministry officials have held “technical talks with the authorities in Kabul” to achieve this, he added.

At first, Germany intends to deport Afghans who have committed crimes, according to Dobrid. Beyond that, however, the government has left open the possibility of deporting Afghans to Germany without protection status.

The Mertz government has already arranged a deportation flight to Afghanistan, sending 81 Afghans convicted of crimes to the country this summer. The government of his predecessor, former chancellor Olaf Solz, also carried out such a flight last year, making Germany the first European country to deport a large group of Afghans to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

Both flights were arranged with Qatari officials acting as intermediaries. Now, Mertz’s government is moving towards direct contacts with the Taliban to increase the number of flights. As part of these agreements – and in order to coordinate future deportations – German authorities allowed Taliban representatives to serve in Afghan consulates in the country, making Germany the first EU country to do so.

Others may follow.

“The repatriations we have carried out in Afghanistan are of great interest to many other countries,” Dobrid said during a summer summit with his European counterparts in Copenhagen, adding that they discussed “who would want to participate and whether and how that would be possible.”

Austria and Belgium are among EU states pointing to the Berlin approach as a model. The German government is a benchmark for its approach to immigration, including plans to deport Afghans convicted of crimes.

Germany’s new Realpolitik

The Merz government has increasingly sought to lead an anti-immigration front within Europe, sharply departing from past policies that made Germany the most receptive European country to asylum seekers, particularly during the tenure of Angela Merkel, the former conservative chancellor.

But Merz’s conservatives now blame those generous policies for the rise of the far-right AfD, now the largest opposition party in the German parliament. In some polls, the AfD has now overtaken Merz’s conservatives as the most popular party in the country.

The sharp change is leading to a new German Realpolitik on immigration, which, until relatively recently, would have been almost unthinkable. Germany’s relations with the Taliban are a case in point, including the reception of two Taliban representatives to “integrate into the Afghan consular administration in Germany,” as a German government spokesman put it.

For the Taliban government, the arrival of Taliban officials at consulates in Germany marks a clear victory. Despite the Taliban seizing power in 2021, Afghan consulates and embassies remained largely in the hands of Western-leaning Afghan officials who were part of the previous Afghan government. Taliban officials now have an interest in seeing such consulates seized or closed.

Experts say the Taliban government likely sees the entry of consular staff into Germany as a first step to gain more influence – and that Taliban officials are likely to demand additional concessions from Germany in return for their cooperation in the deportations.

“In their international engagements the Taliban have a long history of taking something and then demanding more,” commented William Maley, emeritus professor at the Australian National University and an Afghanistan expert. “The German government will probably get burned with this.”

Danger to dissidents

Human rights groups and the United Nations have strongly criticized Germany over the deportation plans. “Sending people back to a country where they are at risk of persecution, torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment or other irreparable harm violates the basic principle of international law of ‘non-refoulement,'” a UN spokesman said in July.

By accessing data from consulates such as Bonn, the Taliban can find information about where regime opponents reside, including information about their families still in Afghanistan, it said.

When asked about concerns about the Taliban’s access to these files, the German Foreign Ministry responded to Politico with a written statement. “The German government has an interest in ensuring that Afghan diplomatic missions in Germany remain operational and that Afghan nationals in Germany receive adequate consular services, including the issuance of travel documents.”

Taliban officials, meanwhile, are moving to seize diplomatic missions in Germany. In Berlin, officials plan to soon raise the white and black flag of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, which the Taliban brought back when they took power four years ago.