The European Commission voted on Wednesday to grant the European Investment Bank (EIB) the ability to invest money, as a loan, into U.S.-sanctioned Iran.
“We are granting the EIB the capacity to invest in Iran if suitable projects are found,” Siegfried Muresan, a lawmaker from the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), said after the European Parliament voted to overwhelmingly block a motion by right-wing lawmakers seeking to prevent European investments into Iran.
At an EP Budget Committee meeting on May 28, the EIB representative Bertrand de Mazières said raising funding on the international market was a life and death issue for the EIB. “I have to express concerns,” Mazières said. “The entirety of our operations are funded on the international capital markets. Therefore maintaining access to these markets is a quasi life or death issue for the EIB.”
During that same meeting, the UK representation in Brussels said the British government has supported the European Commission in calling for the EIB to lend money to Iran, saying the UK “supports very much the Commission but [is] mindful of effects the DA could have on EIB activities. Shares concerns about even this initial step.”
“It’s beyond comprehension that the European Union, including the British Government are prepared to open up lending again to Iran, especially as we know that their nuclear ambitions are far from over.” UKIP’s Member of European Parliament (MEP) Nigel Farage said in a press release Wednesday. “The Trump Administration will take a very dim view of this.”
The UKIP noted that, “Because all international loans are denominated in U.S. dollars, it would mean the EIB could be shut out of the lending market and pushed into default.”
The European Parliament heavily rejected UKIP’s objection to a delegated act from the European Commission that would allow for the EIB to lend money to Iran.
France’s foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian spoke on French radio prior to his arrival in Vienna on Friday to discuss putting together an economic package to help save the Iran deal. According to Reuters, he said, “They (Iran) must stop threatening to break their commitments to the nuclear deal. We are trying to do it (economic package) before sanctions are imposed at the start of August and then the next set of sanctions in November. For August it seems a bit short, but we are trying to do it by November.”
Trump has warned that any nation that fails to completely halt all oil imports from Iran by November 4 will also face sanctions.
According to Reuters, Rouhani told French President Emmanuel Macron by telephone on Thursday, “The package proposed by Europe … does not meet all our demands.” Rouhani reportedly also indicated that Tehran was hopeful the issue could be addressed on Friday when foreign ministers from the five remaining nations who are signatories to the nuclear deal met with Iranian officials in Vienna.
Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia met with their Iranian counterpart on Friday for the first time since President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived in Vienna, along with an Iranian delegation, to save the nuclear Iran deal.
Adelle Nazarian is a politics and national security reporter for Breitbart News. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
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