The European Union and its member states have been scrambling to to preserve the economic benefits of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) for Iran following President Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement on May 8. In the last month, the European Commission has moved to add Iran to the investment mandate of the European Investment Bank (EIB), the EU’s long-term lending institution (even in the face of significant resistance from EIB’s management). Similarly, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DEVCO) has set-aside a pool of funding to support projects in Iran. The European External Action Service is also coordinating discussions around central bank payment channels and the European Commission’s revival of the blocking regulation, which prohibits European compliance with extraterritorial sanctions.
As a core party to the JCPOA, the UK government has a strong interest in seeing these European efforts succeed. However, in March of 2019, at the end of the Brexit process, the UK will likely leave the EU, meaning that it will end its participation as stakeholder in European institutions, including EIB, as well as European legal frameworks, such as the blocking regulation.