Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Europe’s Losing Credibility on Iran Sanctions

EU leaders have the means to sidestep U.S. sanctions, but the political will isn’t there.

November 16, 2018 at 12:34 PM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

Europe’s big three.
Photographer: Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg

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European Union leaders have long called for the bloc to behave more independently and strengthen its international role. Their failure to build a way to bypass U.S. sanctions on Iran has brutally exposed how far they are from that goal.

In September, Federica Mogherini, the EU’s top foreign policy official, announced plans for a special-purpose vehicle to keep some trade with Iran flowing with Europe. The hope was to keep the 2015 Iran nuclear deal alive after it was abandoned by the Trump administration. U.S. sanctions, including a ban on most oil exports, kicked in on Nov. 5 — but the SPV is far from ready.