Iran will push aside European companies and further deepen its ties with China and Russia if the bloc fails to open up its special payment channel in time to sustain trade with Iran in the face of the United States’ sanctions, a lawmaker said.
“European firms are the main losers of the delay in establishing the SPV [Special Purpose Vehicle] because in that case, we will expand our relations with China and Russia,” Alaeddin Boroujerdi, a member of Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said in a recent interview with Mehr News Agency.
SPV is a financial mechanism aimed at bypassing US sanctions to enable trade with Iran on a non-dollar basis. It is part of EU’s efforts to save the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the official name of the 2015 nuclear deal) after the US unilaterally withdrew from it and restored the sanctions lifted last year.
Nevertheless, Europe has been dragging its feet over the system’s activation, having missed two deadlines so far.
The legal infrastructure was set to be ready by November when the harshest sanctions affecting the oil and banking sectors were to take effect.
EU's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, later said in an interview that it would be set up by the New Year. It has not come into operation two weeks into 2019, though.
“European countries have not been able to show even a minimum degree of authority to resist the US pressure,” Boroujerdi said.
The US has been flexing its muscle in the European financial system to thwart efforts to protect Iran’s benefits under JCPOA.
Boroujerdi said the persistence of this weakness will threaten Europe’s own national interests before causing harm to Iran.
“Iran has proven over 40 years that it is capable of surmounting sanctions … We have always turned sanctions into an opportunity,” he said.
Moscow Dismayed
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also censured the EU in a press conference on Friday for its failure to show independence in the implementation of the nuclear accord.
“Europe showed great diplomatic skill in securing the agreement but the real test began after its implementation, especially after the US exit,” she said.
Zakharova stressed that JCPOA is not merely a trade deal, but a multilateral agreement that has been endorsed by the United Nations Security Council and is a binding document.
In her latest comments, Mogherini once again affirmed the EU’s commitment to save the deal.
“We are working to preserve a nuclear agreement that has so far been implemented in full, as certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency in 13 consecutive reports,” she said.
However, she refused to announce a date for the SPV’s launch and just repeated that Europe is working to create “tools that will assist, protect and reassure economic actors pursuing legitimate business with Iran”.
“We Europeans cannot accept that a foreign power—even our closest friend and ally—makes decisions over our legitimate trade with another country,” she said in defense of the European economic sovereignty, although it has not yet demonstrated it in practice.
