The European Union’s (EU) High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, is due in Islamabad today at a special invitation from Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar for the eighth session of the EU-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue. That Kallas is coming to Pakistan twice in a span of six months speaks volumes about the importance attached to the strategic engagement plan signed by both sides in June 2019.
In recent months, Islamabad has had to speak simultaneously to power centres in every direction. Recognition from Washington, Beijing and Riyadh could easily tempt any state into beating the drum, waving the flag and declaring the match won before the innings is over. The Foreign Office, to its credit, has avoided that trap, choosing a much more useful path that converts attention into advantage.
Pakistan attaches special importance to the EU for good reason. It is one of the country’s largest trading partners, accounting for more than 30 per cent of exports. Bilateral goods trade stood at €12.2 billion in 2025. More importantly, Pakistan remains the largest beneficiary of the EU’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) arrangement, under which more than 88 per cent of eligible Pakistani exports entered the EU at preferential rates in 2024. Due for review next year, GSP+ must therefore be treated as a national economic asset. It is not charity from Europe. It is a hard economic bargain, and European policymakers have warned over the past year that Pakistan must “do more” to fulfil the scheme’s requirements.
There are spoilers, and Islamabad should not pretend otherwise. Some external competitors would welcome any dilution of Pakistan’s tariff advantage, especially as Europe’s trade engagement with India deepens. At home too, political actors must understand the costs of taking domestic disputes to international forums. The opposition’s appeal to the UN Human Rights Council over the detention of the PTI founder, for instance, may be presented as politics, but government circles are not wrong to see the danger of feeding narratives that can be used against Pakistan’s GSP+ case. Political grievance is one thing. Jeopardising exports, jobs and market confidence is quite another.
Rights and governance concerns will, of course, form part of the conversation. That is the nature of GSP+. But Pakistan is not arriving at this dialogue empty-handed, thanks to hard-earned goodwill after last May’s conflict with India, its offer to investigate the Pahalgam attack and its measured response to India’s unilateral suspension of the Indus Water Treaty, all of which have strengthened its case as a responsible regional actor.
The Foreign Office would do a splendid job defending Pakistan, its implementation of 27 international conventions and its cooperation on migration management, including actions against human trafficking and a reported fall in asylum applications by Pakistani nationals. However, Islamabad needs to understand that skyrocketing energy costs, slow export diversification and a tragic policy uncertainty continue to give critics easy ammunition. There’s a lot that still needs to be done if Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s $100 billion export target by 2030 is to be more than a slogan. *