At the end of August, amidst the US military’s withdrawal from the country, the Taliban swept to victory in Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of foreigners and Afghans have been flown out of the country, but many remain, including American and EU citizens as well as Afghan allies. As the Taliban swept through and took Kabul the Afghan military disintegrated within the space of two weeks. The result has been a wide-scale humanitarian crisis which the United Nations Refugee Agency has warned will result in the displacement of half a million more Afghans by years end. The threat of terrorism and Afghanistan becoming a safe haven for terror groups such as Al Qaeda is a prominent security concern. Concerns of a large-scale migration crisis. Concerns even for the Transatlantic relationship between Europe and the US due to the US’ lack of consideration or consulting of its European allies in the build-up to its withdrawal.
In this episode, Lucinda Creighton is joined by Polish MEP Radek Sikorski to discuss Afghanistan from an EU perspective. He is a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET), the Special Committee on Artificial Intelligence in a Digital Age (AIDA) and the Subcommittee on Security and Defence (SEDE). Sikorski also served as Poland’s Minister of Defence between 2005 and 2007, Minister of Foreign Affairs between 2007 and 2014, and Speaker of Parliament in Poland between 2014 and 2015.
