The EU first got involved in the Iranian issue when in 2002, Iran announced the construction of further nuclear power plants; under the NPT guidelines, Iran has the right to establish and maintain a nuclear programme for civilian purposes, but also has the obligation to inform the IAEA of any civilian development programmes and yet did not until they were well underway, which led to the suspicions of the international community that the programme was rather meant for the
development of weapons of mass destruction, and thus began the whole Iranian crisis.
Allowing every signatory of the NPT to pursue civilian nuclear activities has been decried as a loophole liable to be exploited by malicious states, the most egregious example of which being North Korea; however, no-one knows Iran's exact intentions.
The EU has taken the lead when it comes to the Iranian crisis. The EU has supported, sponsored, an pushed for resolutions at the IAEA, referring Iran to the UNSC, and imposing UNSC sanctions on the export of nuclear materials and dual-use goods to Iran. The E3 (France, UK, Germany) and the EU have also been instrumental in working with China, Russia and the US to offer Iran
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international support as well as cooperation for its plans for light water reactors, and providing it access to international facilities for uranium enrichment, so as to certify transparency in Iran's nuclear programme and remove the need for independent facilities in Iran that might be used for non-civilian nuclear purposes.
The EU has gained acceptance from the US, China, and Russia as an international actor for its role in this case; this is evidenced by the UNSC members' (or P5) willingness to delegate the role of primary negotiator to the EU.
Before the current embargo, as well as the dialing-up of sanctions since 2006, the EU was the main destination for Iranian oil and trade (accounting for about a third of its exports until 200910), which would imply that the EU will suffer economic penalties by cutting ties with Iran; some of the EU's weakest countries – notably Greece and Spain – are heavy buyers of Iranian oil, which is why the EU has set a July deadline for the embargo to officially begin. Considering that sanctioning Iran economically is ultimately also going to cause problems for the EU, currently in bad shape, one might wonder what is it that the EU fears so much. It is doubtful that Iran would ever use a nuclear device to attack the EU; it is doubtful that Iran would use nuclear weapons first at all. So if it is admitted that a physical attack is unlikely, other factors come into play. It is possible that the EU is finally serious about non-proliferation; Iran has neither Israel's American support, or India's economic weight, or either country's democratic institutions; Iran however does have a huge supply of natural resources, which would make it believable that principles and values are what is driving the EU's determination here. This hypothesis would also fit in with China's lack of enthusiasm for stopping Iran's nuclearization, since it does not share these values.
More likely would be that the EU's various countries and their different interests in the Middle-East fear the disruption a nuclear Iran might cause. No-one wishes to see a nuclear escalation in the world's oil-supplying region, and many fear this will be the likely outcome of a nuclear Iran. In the EU, the prevailing fear would be that a nuclear Iran may lead to a nuclear domino effect in the
10 Oezbek, E. (2010)The EU’s Nonproliferation Strategy: Iran as a Test Case, Strategic Assessment, Volume 13, No. 2, p. 74
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Middle East, markedly for Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia (even if Israel's acquisition of nuclear weapons did not). It is also dreaded that Iran might share nuclear technology with Syria, its only ally in the region. A nuclear Middle East would be a threat to the stability of the international community, since it would exponentially increase the risk of both nuclear terrorism and nuclear escalation. Israel, for one, has already stated that it would never accept a nuclear Iran.
Cynics might point to French nuclear exports, and the risk of an Iran with nuclear know-how jeopardizing French trade in that field. France is one of the most vehement proponents of sanctions against Iran in the EU, along with the UK whose relationship with Tehran has been tenuous at best since the fifties; with two of the EU's strongest countries, and its two nuclear countries both pushing for tough measures on Iran, the EU's dedication to the matter seems more clear.
Finally, the EU has been seeking to prove itself as a strategic, global actor for some time now; the Iranian issue is already ten years old, and to fail now would signify a loss of prestige in the eyes of the international community.11 It has just managed to assert itself as the leader here, and has proved itself by juggling the issues of Russia, China, and the US, two of which are prominently against sanctions (and yet sanctions have still been passed at the UN level) while the third had refused to deal with Iran since the end of the seventies. Giving up on this issue would deal a major blow to the EU's image as a global actor, rather than just a huge trade bloc.
Iran and the EU first normalised relations in 1991, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. In 1992, the two developed a 'Critical Dialogue' which ended five years later, in 1997, due to the 'Mykonos Crisis' when a German court ruled that the Iranian authorities were involved in the assassination of three Kurdish dissidents and their translator in a Berlin restaurant in the early nineties12. This led to the recall of EU member states' ambassadors from Tehran, the suspension of all bilateral
ministerial-level meetings, reaffirmed the EU policy not to supply arms or dual-use goods to Tehran, and led EU member states to cooperate so as to ensure Iranian intelligence personnel was incapable
11 Arfazadeh Roudsari, S.(2007) Talking Away the Crisis?The E3/EU-Iran Negotiations on Nuclear Issues, EU Diplomacy Papers, p. 21
12 Dryburgh (2008): The EU as a Global Actor? EU Policy Towards Iran, European Security, 17:2-3, 253-271, P. 258
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of entering the EU. The same year, the more reform-minded Khatami was elected president of Iran, and in 1998 -only a year later - the EU and Iran entered a new 'Comprehensive Dialogue” that discussed issues such as weapons of mass destruction – which shows the EU interest in this field already then – as well as energy, trade and investment cooperation. All this ended, obviously, in 2002.