On Monday, EU foreign and defence affairs ministers met in Luxembourg to discuss assistance for Ukraine and further sanctions on Iran in light of both its recent strike on Israel and its support of Russia's war against Ukraine.
Drones and missiles.
EU foreign and defence ministers discussed support for Ukraine - following US lawmakers' approval of a nearly 61 billion-dollar aid package - as well as sanctions against Iran for its attack on Israel and its arming of Russia.
The ministers instructed EU High Representative For Foreign Affairs and Security Josep Borrell to submit concrete proposals for sanctions. These should make it possible to impose further trade restrictions on Iran in order to make it more difficult for the country to build and develop drones and missiles. There are also plans to impose sanctions on individuals, organisations and companies.
"We have reached a political agreement in order to enlarge and expand the existing drones [sanctions] regime to cover missiles and their potential transfer to Russia," reported Borrell.
He added that the sanctions will include production and will expand to shipments of drones and missiles not only to Russia, but also to the entire Middle East and the Red Sea region. The ministers also agreed to expand the list of drone components that member states are prohibited from exporting to Iran.
An initial political agreement in principle for new Iran sanctions had already been reached last week following the recent escalation of the conflict between Israel and Iran. The heads of state and government at the EU Council summit had subsequently declared that "the European Union will take further restrictive measures against Iran, in particular with regard to drones and missiles". Iran has supplied Russia with drones.
On the margins of the summit, Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob stressed that "the only way to reach peace is for all of us to start to realise our responsibility together. This is the position we will continue to defend, not only in the Middle East, but also with regard to Ukraine and Russia".
On April 23, the Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian condemned planned sanctions against his country for the large-scale attack on Israel as "unlawful" and "regrettable". Iran had exercised its right to self-defence with the attack, Amir-Abdollahian wrote on X. He called for sanctions against Israel instead.
Heightened tensions - what happened?
The region has been plunged into turmoil since October 7, when Hamas militants launched an attack that led to the deaths of 1,170 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,012 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, the territory's health ministry said on April 19.
World leaders, politicians, NGOs and civilians have been calling for a ceasefire for months.
Lebanon's powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah movement has engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire with Israel since the war started.
There has also been a surge in violence involving Tehran-aligned groups in Iraq, Yemen and Syria.
At the end of December, South Africa took Israel to the International Court of Justice, accusing it of violating the Genocide Convention during the ongoing Gaza war. In an interim ruling, the UN court ordered Israel to take protective measures to prevent genocide.
The spectre of a regional war has only been accentuated in the past week following Iran's first-ever direct attack on Israel on April 13-14 in retaliation for a deadly air strike on Tehran's consulate building in Syria's capital Damascus on April 1, that was widely blamed on Israel. Two generals and five other members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Islamic Republic's ideological army, were among those killed.
Israel has said Iran launched "over 350 threats, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, rockets and suicide drones". Nearly all the missiles and drones were intercepted by Israel and others, including the United States, Britain and France.
Amidst these heightened tensions, some countries have set up processes to extract their countries' citizens from Israel and the broader Middle East region if necessary, for example North Macedonia.
Early on April 19, explosions were reported in central Iran, with senior US officials quoted in the press as saying that Israel was retaliating.
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations on April 14, Gilad Erdan, urged the Security Council to designate the Revolutionary Guards as a "terrorist" organisation and to "impose all possible sanctions on Iran before it's too late". Iran's envoy to the UN said Tehran had "no choice" but to respond to the April 1 attack.
Calls for Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to be put on EU's terror list.
At the Monday meeting, the possibility of including the IRGC - a branch of the Iranian armed forces - to the EU's list of terror organisations was also a point of discussion.
The Austrian Federal Minister for European and International Affairs, Alexander Schallenberg, was in favour "if it is possible". Although, he said it is something that "de facto" the EU "already does" because it has individually sanctioned several of its members.
Designating the branch of the Iranian armed forces as a terrorist organisation is challenging. The IRGC would first have to be prosecuted by a national authority for terrorist activities under EU law to prompt this sanction.
A recent court ruling in Düsseldorf, Germany, concerning the activities of the IRGC, is being examined by EU officials. This could open the way to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organisation.
The Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister Hadja Lahbib stated that she supported the extension of sanctions against the Revolutionary Guards.
Lithuanian minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said he was in favour of restricting the military industry of a country that "is fighting on two fronts". "How many fronts does Iran need to open for us to get serious about sanctioning them?" he asked, noting the Islamist regime's involvement in Ukraine and its attack on Israel.
In Sweden, the parliament formally decided last year to order the government to push for putting the IRGC on the EU's list of terror organisations.
Review of further EU sanctions against violent Israeli settlers.
EU chief diplomat Borrell stated on Monday that the EU will once again address the sanctions against Israeli settlers responsible for violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
On Friday, the European Union imposed sanctions on four Israeli settlers and two groups of "extremist" Israeli militants for violence committed against Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
"Attacks against Palestinians are also increasing in the West Bank. We will have to look again at sanctions against violent settlers. Last week we approved a small package of measures," Borrell told the press upon his arrival at the Council of EU Foreign and Defense Ministers.
While Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib supported evaluating more sanctions against Israeli settlers, she considered it insufficient, asking to go further and also sanctioning those arming and defending violent settlers. "The whole system has to be affected," she said.
Stalled Israel-Palestine ceasefire talks, but "hope not lost".
Regarding the situation in Gaza, Borrell after the Monday meeting said that "there is no progress on the release of hostages, there is no prospect for a ceasefire, and there is no real easing of the humanitarian catastrophe".
Borrell said that European Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarcic, had provided "some examples of how humanitarian support is being obstructed", even though the EU is calling for "unhindered access".
"The humanitarian catastrophe for the Palestinian people continues. I want to insist that there will be no lasting stability in the region as long as the war in Gaza continues," Borrell stressed.
The EU chief diplomat further said that ministers agreed to invite the Israeli foreign minister as well as the new Palestinian Prime Minister to the upcoming Foreign Affairs Council.
The Qatari Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdelrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, whose country is an important mediator in trying to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza war, said on Monday at the first ever high-level EU-Gulf Cooperation Council security forum that he has not lost hope of achieving that despite negotiations with Israel and Hamas not yet having produced results.
(The content is based on news by agencies participating in the enr, in this case AFP, ANSA, dpa, EFE, MIA, STA, TT).
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
