A few days after Iran attacked Israel with hundreds of drones and missiles, MEPs have called on the European Union to take a firmer stance towards Tehran.
“The spiral of action and reaction that we are in is leading us towards a regional war that must be curbed. Diplomacy must prevail over warmongering”, said Iratxe García Pérez (Spanish) on behalf of the S&D group. She called for sanctions against Iran to be extended. Several MEPs followed suit, calling in particular for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to be included on the EU list of terrorist organisations.
“We have the opportunity to call for the Revolutionary Guards, who sow terror wherever they are, to be placed on the terrorist list. (...) The best time to put the organisation on the list is now; it would be a good thing for the Iranian people and a very bad thing for the Iranian dictators”, said Bart Groothuis (Renew Europe, Dutch). “The Iranian regime is the head of the snake which is currently playing an active role in two wars that are disrupting European peace”, added Ryszard Czarnecki (ECR, Polish).
Hannah Neumann (Greens/EFA, German) believes that the EU cannot “continue to stand idly by in the face of Iran, which has launched a first direct attack on Israel and continues to violate the provisions of the Iran nuclear deal”, and must “work on a plan B with a security architecture that combats weapons of mass destruction”.
Martin Schirdewan (The Left, German) believes that “the mullah regime has a policy of annihilation, we must put an end to this Islamist madness, devoting all our forces to it, because they’re using their forces against those (editor’s note: Iranian women) who protest”.
Rasa Juknevičienė (EPP, Lithuanian) said she was convinced that the EU and its allies could fight terrorist states, including Iran. “Our leaders can go down in history as those who succeeded in defeating regimes with blood on their hands”, she said.
For his part, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell reiterated that there was a political consensus to expand the existing sanctions against Iran, specifying that they would take effect “in the coming days”. He also stressed that the EU was doing its utmost diplomatically to try to calm the situation. “Despite the fact that attacks and counter-attacks have slowed down somewhat - which is good news - the situation remains unstable and dangerous”, warned Mr Borrell. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)