December 06-2013
The European Union re-imposed sanctions on 16 Iranian firms last Wednesday, just three days after the EU joined in a nuclear deal with Iran under which it agreed not to impose any new nuclear sanctions on Iran.
The EU said it wasn’t imposing any knew sanctions, just taking legal action to maintain sanctions that had been in place for years.
The Islamic Republic objected vehemently to the EU action. But Iran worded its objection very carefully and did not accuse the EU of violating the new agreement, which would have had the impact of voiding the agreement that was just signed. Instead, Iran said only that the new sanction action “raises questions and causes surprise.”
An EU court earlier this year voided the sanctions on the 17 Iranian firms, saying the EU had failed to provide enough evidence linking the firms to Iran’s nuclear program.
The EU decided not to appeal the decision, which it expected to lose, but instead to re-impose the sanctions again with new examples of the firms’ ties to Iran’s nuclear program. Many expect Iran to go to court again and raise the same objections as the first time. But, in the meantime, the sanctions will remain in place.
Given the slow pace of the EU court system, Europe hopes these sanctions will remain in place until the nuclear issue is resolved in a comprehensive agreement that will lift all sanctions.
In Tehran, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Marziyeh Afkham objected to the EU action but avoided condemning it as a violation of the November 24 agreement signed in Geneva between Iran and the Big Six. “Taking into account the Geneva agreement and the joint efforts being made to take the initial steps toward implementing it, this action raises questions and causes surprise,” Afkham said.
She called the EU action a “unilateral and politicized move lacking in a necessary legal basis.”
“While firmly rejecting this move, we recommend the European Union come in line with the orientation of the Geneva agreement and move to reinforce mutual trust,” she said in phrasing meant to sound strong to Iranians without actually doing anything.
The EU action maintains sanctions against all but two of the 18 firms that had gone to court and won their cases against the EU September 16. The two firms not re-listed are Leadmarine and IRISL Club, both subsidiaries of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL). The EU didn’t say why it chose not to re-list those two firms.
On November 16, eight days before the interim nuclear agreement was signed, the EU had re-listed another eight Iranian firms that had won cases in the EU court on September 6.
Michael Mann, spokesman for the EU’s foreign policy arm, said the re-listings respond to the legal requirements laid down by the EU courts and do not represent any change in “the level of EU sanctions against Iran.” The EU had announced before the agreement was signed in Geneva that this was the response it planned to the court decisions overturning the sanctions.
The EU currently has sanctions imposed on about 500 companies and more than 100 people from Iran.
The day after the EU re-listed the 16 firms, the EU’s highest court decided another sanctions case and said one more firm sanctioned by the EU did not meet the legal standards to be listed but another one—which a lower court had ordered taken off the list—could remain under sanctions.
The Luxembourg court confirmed Iranian private company Fulmen Group and its largest shareholder and chairman, Fereydoun Mahmoudian, shouldn’t be on the list of companies subject to restrictions because their alleged support of nuclear proliferation couldn’t be proven. But it ruled the EU was right to place restrictions on state-controlled Manufacturing Support & Procurement Kala Naft Co. because it trades natural gas and oil equipment, which are subject to EU sanctions.