BRUSSELS — The EU’s move to designate Iran’s feared paramilitary force as a terrorist organization was the product of a recalculation by several governments, in which the need to respond to Tehran’s brutal crackdown outweighed the diplomatic risks.
For weeks, a group of influential EU capitals — led by France and, until recently, Italy and Spain — warned that a terror listing would close off what little diplomatic leverage Europe still had with Iran, risking reprisals against European nationals and complicating nuclear talks.
That argument began to unravel as the regime’s internet blackout lifted and video footage circulated of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ violence against protesters. By Wednesday afternoon, the capitals championing the designation, among them Berlin, had managed to peel away Italy and Spain from France — with Paris loath to be out on its own.
While “there was an internet ban everything was not clear,” said EU chief diplomat Kaja Kallas when asked by POLITICO on Thursday what had changed capitals’ minds. But “when the atrocities were clear, then also it was clear there has to be a very strong response from the European side.”
European Parliament President Roberta Metsola told POLITICO that after “seeing the appalling images emerging from Iran of the continued brutality of the regime … it was necessary for Europe to act.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Paris had revised its view due to the “unwavering courage of the Iranians, who have been the target of this violence.”
As other capitals got on board, “the pressure [on France] became too much,” a European Parliament official said. “They didn’t want to stand there like the only ones blocking this decision and supporting that regime … The shame of being the one to block this, the cost became too big.”
Dominoes falling
Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel told POLITICO that the emergence of new video evidence of killings and violence from regime forces had crossed a “big line” for many EU countries. The Netherlands has been one of the key proponents of designating the Revolutionary Guard.
Italy was the first to publicly declare it had changed camps, with Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani on Monday saying “the losses suffered by the civilian population during the protests require a clear response.”
One EU diplomat from a country that had pushed for the listing in the lead-up to Thursday’s meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels said footage of parents looking for their children in body bags had been particularly “horrific” and “motivating,” along with reports of deaths in the tens of thousands.
Early on Wednesday afternoon, Spain signaled its position had also shifted, with the foreign ministry telling POLITICO it supported the designation, which puts the Revolutionary Guard in the same category as al Qaeda, Hamas and Daesh.
Paris was the last holdout.
French officials had argued such a massive terror listing — the group has more than 100,000 personnel — would limit opportunities to talk about nuclear nonproliferation and other matters due to the fact that many of Europe’s interlocutors are tied to the sprawling Revolutionary Guards.
France, along with the U.K. and Germany, is also a member of the E3 group of nations that are holding nuclear talks with Iran. While the E3 recently activated snapback sanctions on Tehran over its failure to cooperate with inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Paris was still hoping for a diplomatic solution.
For France, keeping the Revolutionary Guard off the EU terror list “maintained the possibility that the E3 could play a role if the negotiations on the nuclear program started again,” said a European diplomat.
But there was another reason preventing Paris from coming aboard. While French officials had avoided making the link between France’s stance and Iran’s use of hostage diplomacy, weighing on them were the fates of two of their nationals — Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris — who had recently been released from the notorious Evin Prison and are under house arrest at the French Embassy in Tehran.
But lacking support from its allies to continue to resist the move, Paris dropped its opposition. France’s Barrot said the deaths of thousands of protesters could not “happen in vain.”
The United States, which designated the Revolutionary Guard as a terror group in 2019, has also been pressing the EU to follow suit, with a French presidency official saying Paris had had “a very large number of exchanges with the Americans” on Iran.
U.S. President Donald Trump warned on Wednesday that “time is running out” for the regime and that a “massive Armada” was “moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose” toward the country.
Clea Caulcutt, Victor Goury-Laffont, Gabriel Gavin and Tim Ross contributed reporting.