EU to block Trump’s Iran sanctions by activating old law

The European Commission will on Friday launch a trade defense law in response to U.S. economic sanctions against Iran in a bid to keep the nuclear accord with Tehran alive, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Thursday.

Juncker told reporters in Sofia that EU leaders decided Wednesday night to activate the so-called blocking statute, which bans European companies from complying with the U.S. sanctions against Iran.

“We have the duty, the Commission and the European Union, to protect our European businesses,” said Juncker, adding: “We must act now and we will act now. That’s why we are launching the process to use the 1996 ‘blocking statute’ to neutralize the extraterritorial effects of U.S. sanctions on European companies … We will do that tomorrow morning at 10:30.”

The blocking statute would forbid EU companies, under threat of punishment, to cancel business ties with Iran because of the U.S. sanctions. To do that, will need to update the law to include Donald Trump’s sanctions, a process that could take up to two months, depending on how fast the European parliament and Council vote on the update. EU countries need to approve the text by a qualified majority, meaning skeptics like Germany alone would not be able to veto the law.

Juncker also said that leaders had decided “to allow the European Investment Bank to facilitate European companies’ investment in Iran.” This means that the investment bank could potentially issue loans for companies that might no longer be covered by European banks, which are expected to withdraw their operations from Iran out of fear of consequences for their business with the United States.

Source

Is it 2020 yet?

I really wonder how this will play out.

Juncker is a complete moron

But at least the US can impose harsh sanctions on any US company that deals with the EU.

Good move by the EU.

Would be interesting to see the rest of the world place sanctions on trade with the US.

Get ready for 4 more years with Trump if that happens.

So? Watching the US destroy itself is already hilarious. Season 2 could be even better.

Good. The EU and others need to start pushing back against the US. The US government isn’t their friend anymore and this has been evident for a while now.

LOL yep you are correct

And I can´t wait for Canada to become the global leader and protect Europe against the evil Russians.

LOL you are a dreamer.

You wish.

Also, I am not a Mexican.

US deliberately hurting their own economy?

Good. Now we need Trump out of office and get to work on rebuilding what we lost with him.

am I reading that right?

@theone86 said:

The story of the baby boomers, isn't it?

The EU has more to lose than the US has.

Remember EU has a trade surplus.

Reading what?

And probably not, you often seem to misread things.

Why is it a good thing to your back on your ally again?

The US is not turning it´s back on the EU.

The EU is turning it´s back on the US, it´s the same old issue with liberals in their marble tower. Which is also why they are trying to play hardball with the UK.

Not to forget that Germany and France have long been upset over not being more of an influence in the world and their European united states dream.

US is backing out of a deal that is as far as we know being upheld.

Trump's done a great job alienating most or our allies and diminishing the US' credibility. Economic nationalism, isolationism, and xenophobia; it's a recipe for disaster.

Its at the point where I WANT Trump voters to be hurt economically so that they see that actions have consequences, I don't see any other way than lightening their wallets. Perhaps we can turn it around and look back at Trump's administration as a horrid and painful lesson on impulsive actions of our electorate.

@horgen: I try not to get too caught up in the generational war thing. I know there are a lot of liberal boomers and not all of them are calling for us to destroy our allies economy. But overall yeah, the story seems to be that they inherited a boom economy and are leaving us with a bust economy. Less of them sticking something in their own wheel and more of them sticking one in ours.

That would probably just reinforce their viewpoint. They'd just default to blaming someone else, immigrants or China or whatever other scapegoat Trump manages to concoct. Plus, a large segment of Trump voters are upper class, they didn't vote for him to get themselves a factory job.

I'm not sure it would, to be honest. Most swing voters tend to do vote with their wallets. Let them hurt and suffer.

@HoolaHoopMan: I guarantee you they would. Farmers around here are already blaming the drop in soybean prices on "The Liberals."

lololol

so you're hinting that the US is going to impose sanctions on US companies tat do business wit the EU?

@horgen said:

@theone86 said:

The story of the baby boomers, isn't it?

Has nothing to do with baby boomers. Baby boomers in Canada are mostly liberal. Has everything to do with the cesspool culture of the US. Goodbye and good riddance, America.

Damn...I always like to give people the benefit of the doubt. Don't do this to me!

Well, according to Israel they are not upholding their end.

And to be fair to Europe, I believe their intelligence a lot more than I believe the French or the Germans. Especially the French are not very trustworthy.

Isreal has provided zero proof they are not upholding the deal.

"Mr Netanyahu did not present evidence that Iran was currently violating the terms of the nuclear deal, for example by secretly enriching uranium now."

Meanwhile there is numerous amounts of hard data that they are upholding the deal.

This is a non debate at the moment.

I'd love to see the EU keep doing things like this just to say **** you to trump, and the US.

If this keeps up, I wouldn't be surprised if the EU just shrugs their shoulders, turn towards Russia and China and go " Well at least you keep your agreements, wanna increase trading?"
Thus leaving the US there with a cold shoulder.

I don't know about Russia. I believe Crimea isn't forgotten in eastern Europe. The last thing EU want really is to depend on Russia more.

True, but it would irritate the US to no end though.

China on the other hand is not so far of a stretch.

And France did not provide any proof other than "trust me because i am Macron"

So considering each country's track record, Israeli intelligence is winning in terms of providing intel.

Are we forgetting IAEA?

Not really, unless you think Iran wouldn´t be smart enough to hide the truth from them.

That is the only evidence we have atm. If Israel has evidence showing something else, and it turns out to be true (I assume some kind of investigation will be initiated if this happens), I have no problem saying Trump did something smart by pulling out of the deal.

I bet there are enough satellites covering Iran, can't these nuclear sites be kept under watch by them, and see if there is any significant change in activity when IAEA wants to visit?

At first glance I thought you said IKEA. LOL

Unfortunately, it does not work like that, just think how much we actually know about North Korea´s program.

It´s easy to hide something, just imagine if it was that easy to discover top-secret installations and how fast the Chinese or Russians could render America and Europe´s arsenal useless.

maybe they'd stop their nuclear ambitions for cheap swedish furniture lmao

So you're debating massive quantities of tangible evidence vs hearsay.

Nice. How republican of you.

If EU loses suit against US sanctions it will be very bad for moderate politicians in Iran. They started this deal with the international community giving up military assets for economic sanctions being lifted and assets unfrozen. They will lose all of it which will play into hardliners hands unfortunately.

Oh yes it is easy to hide something, but you can't hide that you are moving something that requires possibly a few hundreds, if not thousands of trucks loaded in maximum of 24 days.

Not to mention that the traces of radiation will last for thousands of years, making it completely impossible to hide.

Moving the affected materials will take care of that.

I mean, if the wall has traces of radiation, tear it down and build a new one instead. Granted you probably have traces left in the ground as well. Meaning the job of removing that isn't small.

I see you again confuse opinions with evidence.

It´s kinda getting sad that you can´t tell the difference.