The Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the European Union, gathered in Brussels Monday, January 23, opened the debate concerning the classification of the corps of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist entity.
By Philippe Jacqué (Brussels, European office)
The twenty-seven adopted on Monday, January 23, “the most important package of European sanctions since the start of the repression against demonstrations,” said a European diplomat. The European Union’s Foreign Ministers (EU) have decided to be restrictive for human rights violation against eighteen people and nineteen Iranian entities. The Iranian Minister of Sports, Seyed Hamid Sajjadi Hazaveh, four commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Corps (CGRI), four deputies, two directors of Iranian television, but also twelve military units of the pasdarans (CGRI), are now prohibited from Traveling to Europe and will see their assets frozen on the European continent.
Four months after the first salvo of sanctions taken in response to “human rights violations” perpetrated by Tehran since the death of the young Mahsa Amini, September 16, 2022, and the demonstrations that followed the event, the EU has put nearly eighty Iranian responsible and around twenty military or companies under sanctions. London on Monday, London also announced new provisions, asset gels and ban on stay against five individuals and two entities, which brings to fifty the number of Iranians under restrictive measures, according to British diplomacy.
However, European ministers did not have the classification of revolution guards on the European list of terrorist organizations, as asked by the European Parliament, in a resolution voted on Thursday, January 19. While the pressure has been going up for several weeks, especially on the part of Germany and the Netherlands-the United Kingdom, out of the EU, also thinks-, the twenty-seven reserves their response to classify , four years after the United States, this spine of the Iranian regime on its black list of terrorist entities.
“Very strong symbolic measurement”
“This would not change anything on the merits, since the pasdarans are already under sanction, but it would be a very strong symbolic measure. A signal”, explains a European diplomat in favor of this classification. “That the debate is truly launched at European level, it is already a giant step, says Clément Therme, an Iran specialist, lecturer at Paul-Valéry University in Montpellier. Since the summer, the European diplomacy has realized that Iran was not reduced to the sole question of nuclear proliferation. The country is much more complex than that. Human rights violations, as well as drone sales to Russia, must Forcing European diplomacy to review its Iranian policy. “
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