EU lifts sweeping energy, transport sanctions on Syria

BRUSSELS — EU foreign ministers decided on Monday to suspend a series of far-reaching sanctions against Syria to help the country's economic recovery and reconstruction after nearly 14 years of civil war.

The Council decided to remove five financial entities (Industrial Bank, Popular Credit Bank, Saving Bank, Agricultural Cooperative Bank and Syrian Arab Airlines) from the list of entities subject to the freezing of funds and economic resources and to allow funds and economic resources to be made available to the Central Bank of Syria.

The EU has also suspended sectoral measures in the oil, gas, electricity, and transport sectors and introduced exemptions to the ban on banking relations between Syrian banks and financial institutions in the EU to facilitate transactions for humanitarian and reconstruction purposes, as well as for the energy and transport sectors.

The bloc will monitor the country’s situation to guarantee that suspensions remain appropriate with Kaja Kallas, the EU's top diplomat, stressing that "if everything does not go right, then we are also ready to put the sanctions back".

"Any kind of government needs to be all-inclusive and taking into account all the different groups that are in Syria,” she said.

Most of the EU's sanctions were imposed following Bashar al-Assad's violent crackdown on Syrian protesters in 2011, including broad restrictions on trade, financial transactions, and key industries such as energy and transport.

The sanctions led to the collapse of EU-Syria economic relations, with trade flows worth €396 million in 2023.

The regime of Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December last year by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has since been calling for the lifting of wide-ranging sanctions to help the war-torn country's economy.

There have also been calls to remove HTS and its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa from international terrorist lists, but the Council decided to maintain such lists in relation to the al-Assad regime, as well as those on arms trafficking, dual-use goods, the chemical weapons sector, and illicit drug trafficking, among others.

The EU's blacklist, which was renewed in November, covers 318 individuals and 86 entities. All are subject to an assets freeze and a travel ban.

More than 90% of Syrians live below the poverty line and at least 16.5 million people across Syria rely on some form of humanitarian assistance to meet their basic needs, according to a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Last week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned that sweeping EU, US, and UK sanctions on Syria are hampering the country's economic recovery and preventing millions of Syrians from accessing essential services such as electricity, health care, water, and education.

“Rather than using broad sectoral sanctions as leverage for shifting political objectives, Western governments should recognize their direct harm to civilians and take meaningful steps to lift restrictions that impede access to basic rights,” said Hiba Zayadin, senior Syria researcher at HRW.

“A piecemeal approach of temporary exemptions and limited waivers is not enough. Sanctions that harm civilians should immediately be lifted, not refined,” Zayadin added. — Euronews