Iran Press/Iran news: In the short term, the new company is expected to struggle to achieve even its initial goal of enabling Tehran to import vital food and drugs at affordable prices.
After months of delays, three European governments had started the process of registering the company to run a payments channel that would allow goods to be bartered between European and Iranian companies without the need for direct financial transactions. The company should be established by Thursday or Friday, Wall Street Journal reported.
The company is being registered in France and will be headed by a German official with the French, British and German governments as shareholders -- an arrangement intended to ward off US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's threat of sanctioning the entity by putting it under the aegis of Washington's traditional European allies.
The move is the first action by French President Emmanuel Macron to hit back at President Trump as US-French ties have turned frosty.
The European Union promised to create what is known as the special-purpose vehicle as part of efforts to persuade Iran to remain in the 2015 nuclear deal following Donald Trump's decision in May to pull the US out of the accord and reimpose sanctions. When many smaller member countries expressed reluctance to host the company or participate directly as shareholders because of US sanctions threats, the bloc's three biggest powers proceeded with the project.
Iranian officials have repeatedly warned they could restart prohibited nuclear activities if Europe doesn't help it secure the nuclear deal's economic benefits.
European officials have for months tempered expectations of the mechanism's impact. Officials said the first transactions could take several months, with a range of technical steps still to be taken.
Even when fully operating, the mechanism will initially handle only trade not subject to US sanctions, such as exports of food and medicine to Iran, to avoid provoking retaliation from Washington, officials say.
US officials have said their sanctions are designed to protect humanitarian trade but acknowledge that companies' potential links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have scared off foreign banks.
The new payments channel was designed to help. Through the channel, an Iranian firm can sell goods to a European firm and chalk up a credit. The Iranian firm can then use its credit to purchase goods such as medical devices from a European company via the channel. That means no money flows directly between European and Iranian banks.
Swiss officials have been in talks with their US counterparts to win assurances for their banks to protect a payments channel to Iran for humanitarian goods, according to people familiar with discussions. Switzerland's banks are a hub for commodity traders that make shipments to Iran.
On May 8, the US president pulled his country out of the JCPOA, which was achieved in Vienna in 2015 after years of negotiations among Iran and the 5+1 Group (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).
Following the US exit from JCPOA, Iran and the remaining parties launched talks to save the accord. 101/202/211
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