The EU rejects request from the United States to isolate Iran

[G.O.G]

Monday's session of the European Union, the EU bloc decided not to echo the US request to block Iran, as President Donald Trump had recently said, as part of the sanctions that the US imposed on Iran.

In this way, the foreign ministers of the European Union (EU) advanced on Monday in the legislation that will protect the community companies operating in Iran, the extraterritorial effects of the sanctions that the US has decided to reintroduce after withdrawing from the nuclear agreement with that country, according to a dispatch and Efe.

The Council expressed "its intention not to object" the proposal of the European Commission (EC) to amend the regulation that protects companies from the extraterritorial effects of sanctions applied by a third country, informed community sources.

"It provides us with a steady step forward in the measures that the EU has taken to ensure that the economic benefits derived from the nuclear agreement can remain in force," said the representative of the Union for Foreign Policy, Federica Mogherini, in a press conference at the end of the meeting.

This step comes at the request of European leaders and after the EC began on May 16 the process to activate the so-called "blockade statute" by updating the list of US sanctions to Iran.

This statute allows companies to obtain compensation for damages caused by extraterritorial sanctions.

In addition, it annuls the effect in the EU of any judgment of a foreign court based on them, and requires that these restrictive measures not be complied with in Community territory, unless explicitly authorized by the EC.

According to EU sources, the idea is that this regulation is in force for next August 7, when the first round of US sanctions will be applied.

For this, it was necessary that the Council of the EU (the countries) and the European Parliament did not present objections to the proposal in two months.

The Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, said on Monday at the end of the Council that the EU will continue trying to apply the nuclear pact and will seek a fund to compensate financial flows "that will lose the companies that want to remain active in Iran."

On July 6 in Vienna, the foreign ministers of Iran and five major powers (Russia, China, France, Germany and the United Kingdom) that maintain their support for the 2015 multilateral nuclear agreement reaffirmed their "full and effective commitment" to the pact, which they considered "a key element of the nuclear non-proliferation architecture".