On Monday 15 July, European foreign ministers stressed their desire to preserve the Iranian nuclear agreement, while Tehran has exceeded the limit of uranium enrichment and the limit of stocks allowed by the agreement, which celebrated its fourth anniversary on 14 July.
"The deal is not in the best of health, but it’s still alive", acknowledged the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, at the end of the EU Council meeting, adding that it was not appropriate to speculate on its life expectancy.
Earlier in the day, some ministers were more pessimistic. For the British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, there is "a closing but small window" to keep the deal alive, and, for his Lithuanian counterpart, Linas Linkevicius, it is "very close" to the end.
However, despite the difficulties, Europeans are not giving up. "On one hand, we need to make the Instex mechanism faster and more operational to have legitimate trade with Iran and, on the other hand, we need to work to return Iran to full compliance with the deal", Ms Mogherini summarised. However, the High Representative acknowledged that, although 10 Member States are interested in participating in Instex and third countries may participate, the instrument will not compensate for losses due to US sanctions, but only "reduce" their impact. Good news, however, according to Ms Mogherini: "The first transactions are being processed". She added that discussions were ongoing to see if Instex would support oil-related trade, now under US embargo.
When asked about the fact that the Europeans had not yet triggered the conflict resolution mechanism included in the nuclear agreement - Article 36 - the High Representative noted that this article concerns "significant non-compliance" with the agreement and that current data suggest that this is not a significant non-compliance.
She added that Iran's measures were reversible, while calling on Tehran to return to full compliance with the agreement. "Full implementation of the deal is as essential as ever to keep the situation as calm as possible in the region", she warned.
Earlier today, French Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Iran's actions were a "bad decision, a bad reaction to a bad American decision" to withdraw from the agreement and put in place sanctions that have an extraterritorial effect. "We think that the less for less approach is not the right one", added his Slovak counterpart, Miroslav Lajcak, when Belgian Didier Reynders proposed that they "think about a more for more formula".
Iran increases the pressure
But there is no let-up for Europe from the Iranians. As the ministers were considering solutions, Iran's spokesman, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), warned that if Europeans and Americans did not want to act in accordance with their commitment under the agreement, "we will balance out their actions under the deal by reducing commitments and taking the conditions back to how they were four years ago", that is, before the agreement. Iran's latest decisions "have not been not taken out of obstinacy. They are to give the other party an opportunity to come to their senses and fulfil their obligations", he warned. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant with Martin Molko)