Josep Borrell on The EU’s Pressing Concerns

JOSEP BORRELL, EUROPEAN UNION MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS: Yes, the socioeconomic situation in Afghanistan is very dire. I have there some people representing the European Union in a discreet way contacting the Taliban government and the people from the Afghan society. What I can say is that we should work together with U.S. and everybody from the Western world in order to avoid the socioeconomic collapse of the Afghan economy. And, there, we have a dilemma, a dilemma of how to help Afghan people, going further, the humanitarian help, what we call humanitarian-plus, without supporting the Afghanistan government. We cannot fund the Afghan government. Several of their ministers are on the list of terrorist people of the United Nations, but there are one million Afghan boys and girls that, according with the last records, can die of hunger and cold during the next winter, and the winter’s coming. So we need to provide more assistance, certainly, more assistance.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: And therein lies the question. How can you do that? Is the E.U. dealing directly with the Taliban, something that the United States, as you well know, does not acknowledge the Taliban as official government there in Afghanistan? What is the take of the E.U.?

BORRELL: We are not recognizing the Taliban government. Not at all. But we cannot abandon the Afghan people. There are ways of trying to help them. There are United Nations organizations working in Afghanistan. There are a lot of ONGs working in Afghanistan. We are already providing a lot of humanitarian assistance. But we have to go further humanitarian assistance if we want the girls to go to school. First, it has to be schools. If there is no school, no chance for the girl going to school. And this will require a stronger effort. Three-quarters of the Afghan budget were being paid until now by the Western world. Everything has been cut. And it shows that we don’t support the Afghan government, but we have to support Afghan people.