EU May Enact Blocking Regulations If US Withdraws from Iran deal

"In case of a US withdrawal, one of the bloc's options would be to restore blocking regulations which were agreed in 1996 amid Washington's economic sanctions against Cuba," Denis Chaibi, head of the Iranian task force at the EU’s external action service, told the Euromoney Iran Conference 2018 in Paris on Thursday.

"We are looking at a number of possibilities. It is not complicated to do it legally in that the legal instrument exists, but it doesn’t require a huge internal debate,” Chaibi added.

He noted that the EU rules could be revived or put back, but only if it is clear that the US is putting back sanctions with extraterritorial sanctions and that they are being applied. It can’t be done protectively.

Iran and the Group 5+1 countries (the US, Russia, China, France, Britain, and Germany) reached the nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in July 2015 and started implementing it in January 2016.

Under the accord, Iran undertook to apply certain limits to its nuclear program in exchange for the termination of all nuclear-related sanctions against Tehran.