As the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the UK prepare to meet in Brussels in an attempt to salvage the Iran nuclear deal after the US pulled out last week, the EU is also looking at measures to protect companies doing business in Iran.
According to British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson: “We will be looking at a package of measures that we may be able to devise as Europeans to encourage the Iranians to stay in the deal,” he told reporters. “One of the key things we will be talking about ... we will be looking at all the ways that we can come up with to protect legitimate UK and European business who may want to trade with Iran.”
If the nuclear deal is to stand, Tehran is seeking assurances that EU trade with Iran will continue its path of growth, with or without the US.
Following a meeting with Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Federica Mogherini, EU external affairs chief, said the EU had agreed to work on several areas to keep the deal in place. These would include: continued sale of Iran’s oil and gas products; effective banking transactions with Iran; continued multimodal transport relations; new EU investments in Iran; and a blocking mechanism to nullify US sanctions on EU firms.
Meanwhile, the US treasury has already imposed new sanctions on the governor of the Iranian central bank, Valiollah Seif, and the Iraq-based Al-Bilad Islamic Bank –for allegedly moving millions of dollars to Hezbollah on behalf of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
The US has said it will progressively reintroduce the main sanctions against Iran, starting with the automobile and civil aviation sectors on 6 August. Energy and finance will follow on 4 November.