By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas travels to Islamabad on Monday for a high-level bilateral visit that will see her co-chair the eighth round of the EU-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue alongside Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar.
The visit — her second to the Pakistani capital in under six months — marks the latest in an intensifying series of high-level exchanges between Brussels and Islamabad, with the two sides expected to review progress under the Pakistan-EU Strategic Engagement Plan signed in June 2019.
The dialogue, the highest institutionalised forum for engagement between the two parties, is scheduled to cover cooperation across trade, development, climate action, governance and regional security, according to the EU’s diplomatic service, the European External Action Service (EEAS).
Kallas, who holds the title of High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and serves as a Vice-President of the European Commission, will hold a joint press conference with Dar following the talks.
Her schedule also includes meetings with President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Defence Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir, as well as separate engagements with representatives of think tanks and academia, the EEAS said in a statement.
The EU is one of Pakistan’s largest trading partners, accounting for more than 30 percent of Pakistani exports, largely facilitated through the bloc’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus — known as GSP Plus — which grants duty-free access to European markets in exchange for adherence to 27 international conventions covering human rights, labour standards and governance.
Pakistan has been a GSP Plus beneficiary since 2014, and the arrangement has become a cornerstone of the bilateral economic relationship.
Islamabad says it attaches particular strategic importance to the partnership. Pakistan’s Foreign Office said the visit “reflects the growing momentum of high-level exchanges and a shared commitment to further strengthening Pakistan-EU relations,” built on what it described as shared values, economic cooperation and support for multilateralism.
The seventh round of the Strategic Dialogue was held in November last year, also in Islamabad, when both sides pledged to deepen trade and investment ties and underscored the GSP Plus framework as a driver of sustainable growth, export diversification and job creation.
The proximity of the two visits — within the same diplomatic year — signals a deliberate effort by both sides to sustain institutional momentum at a time when Pakistan is navigating significant economic pressures and recalibrating its foreign partnerships. The Strategic Engagement Plan, which underpins the dialogue framework, covers a broad architecture of bilateral cooperation that both sides have agreed to periodically review and expand.
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