The admission of Afghanistan refugees must be “a European decision”. “And it would be regrettable if EU countries refused to take in refugees and if the EU, with 450 million citizens, did not manage to take in mainly women and children.” Asselborn added: “There is a downward trend in receptivity and that makes me a bit sad.”
After the G7 group of the most important industrial nations had not succeeded in persuading US President Joe Biden to extend the US military presence in Kabul, one must now try to disregard human rights within the G20 group of industrialized and emerging countries to prevent in Afghanistan. For Europe, “the only possibility lies in the potential of development aid from the European Union”.
That also requires “European solidarity”. The functioning of schools and hospitals in Afghanistan is 75 percent dependent on international aid. According to Asselborn, 15 people with a Luxembourg connection were rescued from Kabul, mainly thanks to the help of the Belgian military.
The Luxembourg Defense Minister François Bausch criticized the then US President Donald Trump negotiating the withdrawal of the Americans with the Taliban “with enormous naivety”: “But that is the situation we are facing.”