The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, during a meeting with the foreign ministers of the EU member states in Brussels on January 23, 2023. JOHN THYS v AFP
The Twenty-Seven on Monday 23 January adopted “the most important package of European sanctions since the repression of the demonstrations began”, according to a European diplomat. The foreign ministers of the European Union (EU) have adopted restrictive measures against eighteen individuals and nineteen Iranian organizations for human rights violations. Iran’s Sports Minister Seyed Hamid Sajjadi Hazaveh, four commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), four MPs, two directors of Iranian television, but also twelve Pasdaran Military Units (IRGC) are now barred from entering Europe and will have their frozen Assets on the European continent.
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Four months after the first volley of sanctions imposed in response to the “human rights abuses” Tehran has committed since the death of young Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022, and the demonstrations that have followed, the EU is nearly eighty Iranian officials and about twenty military units or companies under sanctions. On Monday, London also announced new regulations, asset freezes and travel bans on five individuals and two entities, bringing the number of Iranians subject to restrictive measures to fifty, according to British diplomacy.
However, European ministers have not included the inclusion of the Revolutionary Guards in the European list of terrorist organizations, as requested by the European Parliament in a resolution adopted on Thursday 19 January. While the pressure, especially from Germany and the Netherlands, has been increasing for a few weeks – the UK, which has left the EU, is also considering this – the Twenty-Seven are still reserving their classification, four years after the USA , this backbone of the Iranian regime its black list of terrorist organizations.
“Very strong symbolic measure”
“It would not change the substance as the Pasdarans are already under sanctions, but it would be a very strong symbolic measure. A signal”, explains a European diplomat this classification. “The fact that the debate is really being initiated at European level is a giant step,” assures Clément Therme, Iran specialist and lecturer at the Paul Valéry University in Montpellier. Since the summer, European diplomacy has recognized that Iran cannot be reduced to the sole issue of nuclear proliferation. The country is far more complex than that. Human rights abuses and drone sales to Russia must force European diplomacy to review its Iran policy. »
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