It was an attempt by EU for keeping alive plans to save the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran that Washington has abandoned.
“We are granting the EIB the capacity to invest in Iran if suitable projects are found,” said Siegfried Muresan, a lawmaker from the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), which led the preparatory discussions on the Commission’s proposal.
The European Investment Bank (EIB), the European Union’s not-for-profit long term investment arm, is a key pillar of the bloc’s attempts to maintain business links with Iran in the face of Washington’s decision to re-impose sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran.
However, the EU lawmakers’ decision does not oblige the EIB to work with Iran, a move that could jeopardize its ability to raise money on U.S. markets and so have far reaching consequences for its operations.
Meanwhile, Bulgaria’s ambassador to Iran Christo Stefanov Polendakov during the opening ceremony of International Industrial and Metalworking Technologies Exhibition (AMB Iran 2018) in Tehran said that U.S. withdrawal from Iran’s nuclear deal (known as JCPOA) cannot prevent European companies from having trade transactions with the country.
On May 8, US pulled his country out of the JCPOA, which was achieved in Vienna in 2015 after years of negotiations among Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).
Following the US exit, Iran and the remaining parties launched talks to save the accord.
Meanwhile, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei has underlined that any decision to keep the JCPOA running without the US should be conditional on “practical guarantees” from the Europeans.
