For the European Union (EU) and its member states, the Iran nuclear deal – or, as it is formally known, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – is a story of pride turned into bitterness and then again into renewed hope.

Between 2003 and 2015, the ‘E3’ of France, Germany and the United Kingdom (UK) invested considerable political and diplomatic capital in making sure that Iran gave verifiable guarantees of the solely peaceful nature of its nuclear programme. The E3 secured support from their fellow EU partners, overcame resistance from the United States (US) to engage Iran and created common ground with Russia and China, thereby ensuring that both diplomacy and pressure on Tehran would be legitimised by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). When the nuclear deal was signed in July 2015, the Europeans could legitimately claim they had given substance to the EU’s ambition to be a credible security player. It was thus with increasing dismay that they saw former President Donald Trump unilaterally end US compliance with the deal and annul Europe’s commitment to legal trade with Iran by way of extraterritorial sanctions, and Iran respond by restarting suspended nuclear activities. The relative ease with which the US government squandered years of diplomatic efforts was a painful reminder of Europe’s limited ability to shape events.

The contrasting outcomes of European efforts before and after Trump’s election, however, should not blind us to the constants. The E3 and the EU have steadily acted upon the assessment that a consensual solution to the nuclear standoff with Iran serves their interests in the survival of the non-proliferation regime and the stability of the Middle East. Equally constant has been their assumption that they could pursue such interests only by creating a diplomatic opening for the main players in the dispute, Iran and the US, to find common ground. This assumption has lent consistency to Europe’s diplomacy in spite of the different tactics in which the E3 and EU have engaged throughout the various stages of the dispute, from conflict prevention to damage limitation back to facilitation of US-Iran diplomacy, which is the course the Europeans are likely to take under the new US administration of President Joe Biden.

Europe’s interests in Iran’s nuclear issue

As diplomacy ultimately boils down to defending interests, an analysis of Europe’s action regarding the Iranian nuclear issue has to start with considering its interests in the matter. These can be divided into three separate but interconnected categories: normative, security and strategic.

The normative dimension revolves around the survival of the non-proliferation regime, which an unchecked Iranian nuclear programme threatens both directly and indirectly. Directly, it could give Iran leeway to divert its civilian activities to military use. Indirectly, it could provoke an irresistible temptation to emulate among Iran’s neighbours, especially its main rival, Saudi Arabia. A nuclear arms race in the Middle East would deal a perhaps fatal blow to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a pillar of international security to which all countries in the region (with the exception of Israel) are parties. An additional normative interest for Europe involves restoring or strengthening the authority of multilateral norms enforcers and verification bodies such as the Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog.

Equally pressing is the security dimension. The US and Israel may decide that a bombing campaign is the only way to curb an unchecked Iranian nuclear programme. As Iran would most likely retaliate by targeting both the US and its regional partners, including by activating its allies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, a generalised conflict would engulf the region, with ominous spill-over effects on Europe.

Strategically, Iran’s nuclear crisis has been a testing ground for Europe’s foreign policy ambitions, especially in terms of promoting multilateral crisis management involving the US and countries with a very different strategic outlook such as Russia and China. For the Europeans, consensual solution of the nuclear dispute is also a means to regain access to Iran’s market, especially in the lucrative energy field, and create an environment more conducive to political dialogue with Tehran on a range of issues, spanning regional flashpoints and human rights.

European nuclear diplomacy with Iran – as carried out by the E3 and the EU High Representative (E3/EU) on behalf of the whole EU – has been predicated on this set of interests.¹ Arguably, no single matter has influenced European strategic thinking more than the nuclear standoff with Iran. The 2003 European Security Strategy (Solana 2003) and the Strategy against the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (Council of the European Union 2003), which explicitly construed non-proliferation, multilateralism, regional security and cooperative crisis management as EU interests, both reflected and shaped, in a circular pattern, the E3’s initial engagement with Iran in nuclear talks in that year (Ahlström 2005, 32; Quille and Keane 2005, 98; Alcaro 2018, 117ff.). The 2016 EU Global Strategy (Mogherini 2016) endorsed ‘lead groups’ such as the E3/EU as a legitimate practice and the Iran nuclear deal as a major achievement in the pursuit of Europe’s interests (Alcaro 2018, 212-5).

These documents also emphasise the transatlantic relationship as an irreplaceable foreign and security policy asset. While valid in general, the point has been of critical importance for the E3/EU’s handling of the Iranian nuclear dossier. Europe’s pursuit of its interests in the matter was and remains inextricable from its ability to secure a US buy-in, as the nuclear issue has put the long-standing ideological-geopolitical contest between Washington and Tehran into sharper focus (Bowen and Kidd 2004).

Since the Europeans lack the power assets to conduct coercive diplomacy successfully alone (Sauer 2007), underlying their action has always been the need to first build and then defend a bridge between the US and Iran (Kile 2005; Alcaro 2011). This transatlantic perspective reveals the strategic continuity beneath the policy adjustments that the E3/EU have made over the years. The safeguarding of their interests in non-proliferation and regional security has involved enabling US-Iran nuclear diplomacy. The latter is consequently the criterion for assessing the E3/EU’s performance on Iran, but also for appreciating the potential of the EU (including member states and institutions) as a proactive diplomatic player.²

Building the bridge: Europe’s contribution to the JCPOA

The signing of the Iran nuclear deal was one of the flagship foreign policy achievements – or blunders, according to critics – of US President Barack Obama (2009-17). However, while the Obama administration was the driving force behind the deal, it did not start from scratch. When Obama took office in early 2009 after campaigning on a promise to engage Iran without pre-conditions, the nuclear standoff with the Islamic Republic had been going on for years. George W. Bush (2001-09) had already taken the decision to join the E3/EU, along with Russia and China, in the enlarged E3/EU+3 format that took on the task of persuading Iran – via diplomacy and sanctions – to come clean on its nuclear ambitions. Bush refused to talk to the Iranians directly, yet he went far enough to legitimise the proposition of negotiating with Iran, thus reversing his initial stance that doing so would reward a ‘rogue’ regime (Fitzpatrick 2008).

US experts (although not US diplomats) often neglect Europe’s contribution to the JCPOA because they tend to see it exclusively through the prism of US-Iran antagonism.³ European scholars have nonetheless shown that the E3/EU played an essential role in facilitating the US’ strategic shift from opposition to full engagement in nuclear diplomacy with Iran (Adebahr 2017, 71ff.; Cronberg 2017; Alcaro 2018, 182ff.).

Conflict prevention was the most pressing matter behind the E3’s initial outreach to Tehran in fall 2003. By then, the IAEA had confirmed that Iran had failed to report work on sensitive nuclear activities, most notably uranium enrichment, that could be used to produce fuel for nuclear weapons. Such concerns surfaced as the Bush administration had shown a resolve to use massive military force against alleged proliferators in Iraq and was resorting to belligerent rhetoric against Iran too.⁴ With the latter intent on expanding ties and influence in US-occupied Iraq, tensions were running high. The E3’s talks with Iran provided a firewall against uncontrolled escalation (Alcaro and Tabrizi 2014).

The E3, which in 2004 was joined by the HR in the E3/EU group, did not just fill a diplomatic vacuum. By prompting Iran to suspend key nuclear activities like uranium enrichment and intensify cooperation with the IAEA, the Europeans forced Tehran to admit implicitly that something was indeed amiss with its activities. Even if its concessions to the E3/EU proved temporary, Iran lost control of the politics around its nuclear programme, as it could no longer dismiss the allegations against it as just enemy propaganda (Denza 2005, 310-1). More importantly, by casting the dispute with Iran as a problem of non-proliferation compliance, the E3/EU created diplomatic room for addressing it outside the context of US-Iran rivalry. Because they focused on Iran’s non-proliferation obligations and not its regime, the E3/EU laid the foundation of an accepted normative framework in which Washington and Tehran could interact (Ërastö 2011).

This normative framework also strengthened the E3/EU’s call for a multilateral endeavour that would deal with Iran’s nuclear issue (Harnisch 2007). When the E3/EU-Iran negotiation reached a dead end in early 2006, the Europeans were able to make the case that Iran’s defiance of the IAEA’s requests for transparency and cooperation warranted UNSC-sanctioned pressure. The approach devised by the E3/EU, based on the incremental adoption of sanctions and the offer of a consensual way out of the dispute, encompassed in a single policy framework the conflicting preferences of the non-European veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council, the more hawkish US and more dovish Russia and China (Alcaro 2010, 19; Meier 2013, 10-1 and 17; Kienzle 2013, 1152). The Bush administration obtained that Iran would at last face international sanctions, but it did so only after dropping its initial reluctance to support talks with Iran, which continued in the E3/EU+3 format. With the bridge between the US and Iran almost complete, the E3/EU’s focus switched to creating incentives for the two sides to lay the last stone.

The Europeans worked tirelessly to keep the channels of communication with Tehran open. Especially important in this regard was the role of the High Representative – first Javier Solana (until 2009), then Catherine Ashton (2009-14) and finally Federica Mogherini (2014-19) – who acted as chief interlocutor of the Iranians on behalf of the E3/EU+3 (Bassiri Tabrizi and Kienzle 2020). Twice, Solana presented the Iranians with a package of incentives devised to bring them back into the fold (E3/EU+3 2006; 2008). HR Ashton and her team presided over a series of meetings between the E3/EU+3 and Iran in 2010-12 that, while inconclusive, were nonetheless important in shedding light on the parties’ respective red lines and areas of potential compromise (Gaietta 2015, 173-4). After secret US-Iranian talks in Oman paved the way for an interim agreement in November 2013 and further talks regarding a final agreement in 2014-15, HRs Ashton and Mogherini set the agenda of E3/EU+3-Iran negotiations, facilitated bilateral exchanges and plenary meetings, and even negotiated the wording of parts of the final text of the JCPOA (De La Baume 2015; Fabius 2016; Alcaro 2018, 157-61).

The E3/EU also kept the US engaged in the negotiation with Iran by aligning their sanctions regime with a series of nuclear-related restrictions adopted by Washington. Going beyond (although still drawing on) UN sanctions, the EU embargoed oil and gas imports from Iran, banned the provision of insurance and re-insurance services (a measure aimed at thwarting Iran’s ability to export hydrocarbons), and cut Iran off from international financial markets by ordering Swift, a Brussels-based company operating interbank messaging, to disconnect most Iranian banks from its system (Bassiri Tabrizi and Hanau Santini 2012). The adoption of sanctions showed that the Europeans were willing to pay a price to push Iran back to the negotiating table, as EU countries still imported about 600,000 barrels of oil per day from Iran before the embargo (Katzman 2016, 41). The fact that Iran could be lured into compromise by the prospect of recovering the lost trade with the EU allowed the Obama administration to limit its concessions, as the US only committed to letting Iran trade with Europe (and others) but kept US-Iran economic interactions extremely limited, since all non-nuclear related restrictions remained in place.

In conclusion, the E3/EU facilitated the conditions for Iran and the US to strike the JCPOA by extracting the nuclear issue from the narrow remit of the US-Iran bilateral contest. They could do so because they recast the concern surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme in normative rather than ideological and geopolitical terms, thereby bringing both sides into a normative framework to which they could both relate. At the same time, the E3/EU-devised dual track approach generated a dynamic of reciprocal approximation in the context of a UNSC-sanctioned diplomatic framework that both the US and Iran eventually found impossible to resist (Alcaro 2018, 198).

Testing the bridge: Europe’s assessment of the JCPOA

The JCPOA obliged Iran to limit its nuclear programme for an extended period of time and accept a greatly empowered IAEA inspection regime in return for sanctions relief (E3/EU+3 and Iran 2015). The Europeans hailed the agreement as a major diplomatic achievement serving EU interests (Mogherini 2015), even though this opinion was not universally shared.

The ink was hardly dry when critics – numerous in the US Republican Party as well as in Israel and the Arab Gulf states – complained about the deal’s flaws. They made three broad arguments (The New York Times 2015a; 2015b; Norell 2015; Takeyh 2017). The first was that the agreement was at best a temporary framework, as most of the limits imposed on Iran’s nuclear work would be phased out in ten to fifteen years after the deal’s inception. Thereafter, Iran would be entitled to develop an industrial-scale nuclear programme that it could then rapidly divert to military use. The second critique was that the JCPOA did not stop Iran from developing ballistic capabilities. This was said to be a fundamental weakness since ballistic missiles were Iran’s only realistic option for a nuclear weapons delivery system. The third argument was that sanctions relief would give Iran additional financial leeway to fund a policy of regional influence through support to proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. These criticisms deserve scrutiny, as President Trump seized on them to motivate his decision to terminate US participation in the JCPOA, while the E3/EU clung to the assessment that, whatever their merits, they were ultimately unconvincing.⁵

The notion that the JCPOA’s non-proliferation provisions would just postpone an Iranian nuclear arsenal by fifteen years was not grounded in empirical fact. Constraints on Iran’s ability to enrich uranium and separate plutonium (a by-product of the enrichment process that can also be easily diverted to military ends) were stringent: work on uranium enrichment was to be kept at a minimum for at least ten years, while plutonium separation was de facto halted. Similarly, severe restrictions on research and development as well as on the production and use of enrichment machinery ensured that Iran’s scientists would hardly be in a position to produce a nuclear arsenal in a short timeframe, as they would need years to catch up with over a decade of lost work. Furthermore, any Iranian move towards militarily relevant activity would be detected by the extensive IAEA verification system created by the JCPOA (part of which had no expiration date), which would also act as a bulwark against attempts to develop a clandestine military programme. As it was deemed to have reduced Iran’s ‘breakout’ time – that is, the time needed to produce sufficient material for a single bomb – from a few weeks to around a year, the JCPOA provided enough time to detect Iran’s non-compliance and punish it through near-automatic restoration of UN, EU and US sanctions (the so-called ‘snapback’).

All of the above did not guarantee that Iran would never acquire nuclear weapons. However, the JCPOA moved that threshold farther into the future than the fifteen years critics pointed to, while also diminishing the room for Iran to conduct secret activities (Fitzpatrick 2019). The proposition that the E3/EU+3 could have obtained an indefinite obligation never to enrich uranium abstracted dangerously from legal and diplomatic reality. The fact that nothing in the NPT prevents its members from enriching uranium made a demand for zero-enrichment legally challenging, albeit still theoretically possible. Anyway, by 2015, Iran’s progress on uranium enrichment could not be entirely reversed. For Iran, a massive, fifteen-year long scaling back of its nuclear programme as well as the acceptance of more intrusive IAEA inspections than was the case with any other NPT member were significant concessions. The only chance Iran could have considered going further hinged on the US’ readiness to offer greater sanctions relief, but the Obama administration was unwilling to go down that path in the (mistaken) belief that this would have reassured domestic critics of the deal.

Most importantly, those who deemed the JCPOA’s non-proliferation commitments weak neglected the fact that Iran’s nuclear calculations were shaped by its international environment, as US intelligence itself admitted (DNI 2007). Had it reneged on its commitments – and the JCPOA further cemented Iran’s NPT obligation never to seek nuclear weapons – Iran would have lost trade and investment relations with Europe and most of the international community. This was quite a disincentive to go nuclear, as trade with the rest of the world was beneficial to Iran not only economically but also in terms of normalising its international status.⁶

The problem with the argument that the JCPOA did not address Iran’s ballistic programme and regional policies was that it saw a flaw where in fact there was an opportunity for progress. Iran would never have accepted to make its ballistic missiles and support for allies across the region a matter of multilateral negotiation, as these are key pillars of its deterrence and defence policy, given the dire conditions of its conventional forces (Elleman and Fitzpatrick 2019).

In addition, while the E3/EU+3 could base their nuclear demands on Iran’s NPT obligations, the legal ground for advancing similar requests concerning ballistic missiles was shaky. The E3/EU+3 nonetheless obtained that UNSC Resolution 2231, which incorporated the JCPOA, maintained comprehensive restrictions on the sale to Iran of conventional weapons for five years and ballistic technologies and materials for eight years (UNSC 2015). Finally, assuming that Iran’s involvement in flashpoints in the Middle East and the Gulf could be addressed by a one-shot major negotiation was nonsense, due to the extreme complexity of regional geopolitical, ideological, ethnic and religious divides. Critics of the JCPOA did have a point in highlighting that Iran could use the revenues accruing from sanctions relief to fund its proxies. Yet, they failed to acknowledge that Iran’s allegiance to its allies does not depend on its financial resources but on the perception of their utility for its security (Crisis Group 2018b).

The JCPOA critics unwittingly or deliberately ignored the promise that the deal entailed for the gradual establishment of reciprocal trust between Iran and the US. As any diplomat can attest to, trust is an intangible yet priceless asset in international relations. It works against a zero-sum logic, reduces the risk of accidental escalation and promotes mutual understanding through regular communication. Iran had, for instance, hinted that it could foresee self-imposed limits on the range of its ballistic missiles – an intention that could well be strengthened after a few years of good faith implementation of the JCPOA. Its regional policies were far more difficult to reconcile with the priorities of the E3 and especially the US and US allies in the region. The nuclear agreement nonetheless remained a net gain, in that it removed the nuclear dimension from the region’s geopolitics, thus diminishing the temptation for other countries in the region to take military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities or build their own deterrent.

All things considered, the conclusion that the JCPOA served Europe’s normative, security and strategic interests rested on a sound assessment of the constraints the deal imposed on Iran’s nuclear progress and the risks and impracticalities of grander schemes framed around maximalist demands that Iran would never accept. The bridge the Europeans had worked so hard to build rested on solid ground, and therefore they had valid reasons to recommit to the JCPOA even after President Trump decided to pull out.

Guarding the bridge: Europe’s defence of the JCPOA

The Europeans calculated that the entry into force of the JCPOA in early 2016 would give them some leverage on Obama’s successor in case the latter had opposed the JCPOA, as all Republican presidential candidates had. Their calculus was that a US president would be unwilling to pay the reputational costs of reneging on a multilateral commitment and threaten European allies with sanctions. The Iran policy of the Trump administration (2017-21) disproved these assumptions.

Initially, the Europeans clung to the belief that the new US president could be persuaded that staying in the JCPOA was the best way to achieve the better deal he had promised during the 2016 electoral campaign. When Trump left the JCPOA anyway, the Europeans decided they could save it by protecting EU-Iran economic relations. When that failed too, the EU lent support to French-led shuttle diplomacy between Tehran and Washington, again to no avail. Eventually, the E3/EU directed their efforts at ensuring that Iran would not formally leave the deal for as long as it would take the US to change tack – or president. These tactical adjustments can be referred to, respectively, as appeasement, resistance, facilitation and damage limitation.

Appeasement is a politically overloaded, disparaging term, and was used in that sense by some, including Iran (The Guardian 2018). Here, however, it is used descriptively only, as the E3/EU did indeed try to appease Trump by taking up some of his criticisms to the JCPOA, calculating that Iran could be brought to accept them. This phase was short but diplomatically intense. In October 2017, President Trump formally declined to certify to Congress, as he was mandated to do on a regular basis by a 2015 law, that continued adherence to the JCPOA was still in the US interest (Trump 2017). His motivations largely reflected the aforementioned criticisms that the deal provided only weak guarantees that Iran would not eventually cross the nuclear threshold, and did not curb its ballistic programme and regional policies. While decertification did not equate to a formal withdrawal, Trump made it clear that this would follow soon unless the US’ European allies addressed his concerns (Reuters 2018). The E3/EU were sceptical that anything they could do would satisfy the Trump administration, which was reverting to Bush’s original stance of focusing on Iran’s regime rather than its behaviour (Hartung 2017). Nevertheless, they reckoned that they would be remiss if they did not try their best to keep the US in the JCPOA.

Between February and April 2018, E3 and US diplomats worked out the contours of a joint framework (Crisis Group 2018a). An agreement was reached that any Iranian attempt to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles would be met with sanctions and that exports of technology and materials for nuclear-capable short- and medium-range missiles would be subject to strict controls. The E3 also went along with the US public denunciation of Iran’s regional activities, although they did not embrace the demonisation of Iran championed by the US (to dispel the notion, upon the insistence of HR Mogherini, the E3/EU and Italy launched a series of political consultations with Iran on regional issues). However, the E3 could not meet Trump’s demand that Iran be sanctioned if it moved beyond the JCPOA-set limits even after the latter’s expiration, as this would have amounted to a unilateral modification of the deal.

E3 diplomatic efforts were supported at the highest political level, with both German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron making the case for the JCPOA during official visits to Washington (Los Angeles Times 2018). By contrast, the readiness of US diplomats to seek mutually acceptable solutions with the E3 was hardly shared by the political leadership. In fact, a late April 2018 cabinet reshuffle brought in two notorious Iran hawks, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, as new National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, respectively. Europe’s fears materialised on 8 May 2018, when Trump terminated US compliance with the JCPOA and adopted a policy of maximum economic pressure (Trump 2018).

The US president’s abrupt break from the deal compelled the E3/EU to change their tactic from appeasement to resistance. While expressing “regret” at the US decision, they recalled that the IAEA had confirmed Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA and that the deal was therefore still in force (Macron et al. 2018). In late May, HR Mogherini pledged that the EU would continue to trade with Iran, ensure the latter’s capacity to export hydrocarbons, keep Iran’s access to EU financial markets intact and maintain sea, air, land and rail transport to and from Iran (Mogherini 2018).

The key to upholding such commitments was protecting EU firms from US ‘secondary’ sanctions, namely fines and other restrictions applied to foreign companies doing business with Iran. In August 2018, the EU revived a 1996 Blocking Regulation that made it illegal for EU firms to comply with the extraterritorial legislation of third countries and instructed the European Investment Bank (EIB) to extend its credit lines to EU investors in Iran. The E3 filed a request to the US administration for exempting EU companies from secondary sanctions and expressed support for Swift, the Brussels-based interbank messaging firm, to keep Iranian banks in its system. Finally, the E3/EU started work on a special purpose vehicle that would facilitate trade with Iran by establishing a barter system involving no money transfers between Iran and the EU to avoid US extraterritorial sanctions (Crisis Group 2019a, 22-5).

The E3/EU aimed to create room for legitimate trade large enough for Iran to keep respecting the JCPOA and small enough for the US not to consider it a threat to its maximum pressure policy. Yet, the premise of President Trump’s new course was cutting any source of foreign revenues for Iran. This goal involved crushing any resistance, even if it came from European allies (which Trump, an avowed sceptic of the transatlantic alliance, had no problem in alienating). Thus, while Iran agreed to defer retaliation against the US withdrawal from the JCPOA until it saw the effects of the E3/EU’s promises, the Trump administration resolved to nullify those effects.

One by one, all the pieces of the E3/EU’s resistance tactic fell apart. The Blocking Regulation did not deter EU companies from leaving Iran in droves out of concern that Treasury regulators would impair their access to US markets (or worse). The EIB was in no position to help either because it feared that it would no longer be able to raise funds in US capital markets. This problem actually affected all EU banks, as even small and medium-sized EU exporters to Iran with no stake in the US economy were denied credit. The US rejected the E3’s request to waive secondary sanctions and actually expanded restrictions on activities involving Iranian entities. In a major blow to the EU’s independence, Swift bowed to US threats and disconnected Iranian banks. A six-month extension of the waivers allowing Greece, Italy and six other non-European countries to keep importing oil from Iran was also more theoretical than concrete, as the US Treasury failed to give timely and unequivocal responses to European requests for clarifications on matters of due diligence.⁷

By early 2019, the only piece of the E3/EU’s resistance still in place was the special purpose vehicle, which was formally registered by the E3 under the name of Instrument in Support of Trade Exchange (Instex). However, EU companies remained circumspect about trading with Iran, and the latter’s irregular implementation of anti-money laundering and terrorism financing requirements did not help. Moreover, Instex was meant to facilitate only trade in goods not sanctioned by the US such as food, medicines and medical equipment. This further dampened Iranians’ expectations of any economic benefits from Europe. They were not wrong, as the mechanism reportedly carried out a single transaction in spite of six other European countries joining it.⁸ In 2019, EU-Iran trade collapsed by 71.5 per cent on a year-to-year basis (Financial Tribune 2020).

Clearly, the pause on the unravelling of the JCPOA was not sustainable. Things came to a head in May 2019, when the US ended all oil waivers in a final attempt to strangle Iran financially (Deutsche Welle 2019). Eventually Tehran decided that a response was warranted. President Hassan Rouhani announced that Iran would take steps to exceed the JCPOA-set limits on its nuclear activities every 60 days, although he emphasised that Iran was ready to reverse course if it was given some sanctions relief (Crisis Group 2019a). At the same time, the Iranian leadership resolved that raising tensions in the Gulf would show the US and its Arab Gulf allies that maximum pressure had costs for them too. What followed was a long streak of escalatory incidents: attacks on oil tankers transiting in the Gulf of Oman, a mutual shooting down of drones by Iran and the US, tit-for-tat seizures of ships by the UK and Iran, an alleged Iranian missile attack against Saudi oil fields, clashes between US forces and Iran proxies in Iraq, and eventually the assassination by the US of General Qassem Suleimani, the iconic strategist of Iran’s regional policies, against which Tehran retaliated with a barrage of missiles against a US base in Iraq⁹ (Crisis Group 2019b; 2020b).

In spite of such tensions, President Trump was wary of full military confrontation with Iran, as shown by his eleventh-hour decision in June 2019 to call off an air strike in retaliation for the downing of the US drone (The New York Times 2019). President Macron seized the opportunity to persuade the US president that a truce on the JCPOA would be a step towards the new deal he was ostensibly after (Entessar and Afrasiabi 2019).

France’s shuttle diplomacy, which inaugurated the facilitation phase, revolved around a scheme in which both President Trump and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif showed interest. The US would consent to the E3 extending a 15 billion dollar credit line (equivalent to several months’ worth of Iranian oil exports) to Tehran, provided Iran returned to full compliance with the JCPOA and agreed to enter into talks over a follow-on agreement. The initiative ultimately failed over an issue of sequencing, as Trump wanted to meet with Rouhani before making any commitment on sanctions relief, while the Iranian president was adamant that sanctions relief should come first (Crisis Group 2020a, 17-20). French diplomats expressed deep frustration at Rouhani, yet Iranian concerns that a meeting with Trump would be inconclusive were not groundless.¹⁰ While the US president had intermittently hinted that he would be open to a deal, he had let Secretary of State Pompeo litter the diplomatic path with obstacles including innumerable penalties on Iranian entities, such as the blacklisting of the central bank, the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (the powerful paramilitary organisation that handles Iran’s regional policies) as a terrorist organisation, and the targeting of Zarif and even Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei with sanctions.¹¹

Whatever hopes the E3 still pinned on the French-led facilitation grew dimmer in autumn 2019, when the Iranian government’s brutal crackdown on people protesting against the sharp fall in living standards provoked widespread international condemnation and a spike in the rhetorical confrontation between Iran and the US (Iran Primer 2019). After the assassination of General Suleimani and Iran’s retaliation in January 2020, the room for European shuttle diplomacy shrank to zero. Once again, the E3/EU were forced to adjust to events over which they had little or no control.

The fourth phase of the E3/EU’s diplomacy was predicated on damage limitation. The bet was to preserve the JCPOA as a legal framework for Iran’s non-proliferation obligations and as a platform upon which new arrangements could be built until Trump could be persuaded to change course or failed to win re-election in November 2020. The Europeans worked on two fronts: they increased pressure on Iran for its continuing breaches of the JCPOA while resisting US moves that could cause Iran to pull out of the deal.

After Iran announced it would no longer comply with any of the JCPOA-set limits following Suleimani’s assassination, the E3 reluctantly activated the JCPOA’s so-called dispute resolution mechanism (DRM) (E3 2020a). It was a risky move as failure to solve non-compliance issues through the DRM could lead to the automatic restoration of UN sanctions, which in turn could have resulted in Iran leaving not only the JCPOA but also the NPT. The E3 calculated that they could use the DRM procedures to temper possible plans by Iran for a significant expansion of its nuclear activities while keeping the process open-ended, as the HR was in charge of the JCPOA joint commission in which issues of non-compliance are addressed.¹² HR Josep Borrell (who replaced Mogherini in December 2019) effectively managed to extend the process indefinitely, arguing that travel restrictions imposed after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic had made it impossible for the joint commission to convene (Borrell 2020). Meanwhile, the E3 pressed Iran to respect fully the one pillar of the JCPOA still in place, the inspection regime. On their initiative, in June 2020, the IAEA executive board adopted a resolution to this effect (E3 2020b), which eventually led to an Iran-IAEA joint statement reiterating reciprocal commitment to full cooperation (IAEA 2020).¹³

The second component of the E3/EU’s damage limitation strategy involved rejection of the US claim that it had the right to resort to the snapback mechanism even though it was no longer a party to the JCPOA. Secretary Pompeo explained the move as a way to extend the five-year embargo on arms sales to Iran included in UNSCR 2231 (which incorporates the JCPOA), about to expire in October 2020. The E3 concurred that arms sales to Iran were problematic, especially in the context of the heightened tensions that had followed the US withdrawal from the JCPOA. However, they argued that this objective could be achieved through means other than a UN vote, and pointed to the EU’s own arms embargo lasting until 2023.¹⁴

The US chose to force a vote on a new resolution extending the UN embargo anyway, which left the E3 no choice but to abstain (Crisis Group 2020c, 10-2). After the resolution was flatly rejected, the US said it would nevertheless initiate the snapback mechanism in accordance with UNSCR 2231 (Pompeo 2020). The E3 manoeuvred with other UNSC members to prevent a vote on that, since the snapback mechanism had been designed in such a way that a US veto on the resolution would have been sufficient to reimpose all UN sanctions on Iran (E3 2020c). By September 2020, the E3 hoped to have bought enough time for the issue to be deferred to after the US election, by then regarded as critical to the fate of the nuclear agreement as Trump’s Democratic challenger, former Vice President Biden, had pledged to re-engage Iran diplomatically (Biden 2020).¹⁵

With Trump’s failure to win re-election, the E3/EU’s stalling tactic has apparently paid off. However, even if the JCPOA still stands, the picture looks grim. The deal has been hollowed out. Iran remains far from the bomb, but the ‘breakout’ time is now shorter than the one year originally ensured (Crisis Group 2020a, 2-6). Meanwhile, the Gulf region has become remarkably volatile. The Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately a third of global seaborne oil shipments transit, has become more militarised. Clashes involving US forces and Iran’s proxies in Iraq have multiplied. The assassinations of Suleimani and, more recently, Iran’s top nuclear scientist (this time reportedly by Israel), have increased the cost for the Rouhani administration to engage the US, not least because US belligerence under Trump has tilted the balance of power in the Islamic Republic towards the hardliners. As a result, the government has grown more repressive of internal dissent and popular dissatisfaction, which the financial siege created by US sanctions has exacerbated. With trade with Europe plunging, the Islamic Republic has been forced to look east, especially to China, to seek alternative sources of trade and political support (Saleh and Yazdanshenas 2020). What to make, then, of Europe’s defence of the JCPOA?

Holding the bridge: evaluating Europe’s performance

Under the Trump administration, the E3/EU failed to replicate their past success in facilitating meaningful US-Iran nuclear diplomacy. The former US president showed no regard for European concerns, coerced EU companies to abide by US rather than European legislation and spurned French attempts at mediation. In turn, the inability to protect EU companies from US extraterritorial sanctions and the eventual failure of Instex diminished Europe’s status in Iran (Sauerbrey 2020). The latter came to regard the Europeans not only as weak but as ambivalent, due to their initial attempt to appease Trump. Mutual trust further eroded as the EU harshly criticised Iran’s missile tests, its role in the conflicts in Syria and Yemen and the crackdown on protesters in autumn 2019. The EU also took limited restrictive measures, namely terminating most direct flights to and from Iran and blacklisting Iran’s intelligence directorate for allegedly plotting attacks against Iranian exiles in France and Denmark.

In light of the above, Europe’s performance seems to have been painfully ineffective. However, such a harsh assessment is inaccurate. Europe’s efforts have not been futile. Specifically, while clashing with both Iran and the US, the E3/EU have manoeuvred in a way that keeps them relevant for both sides, thereby preserving the diplomatic option.

Consider first the Iranian side. The EU member states – as well as the UK, which remained aligned with the E3 even after leaving the Union¹⁶ – maintained a unified stance on Iran: while not sparing Iran criticisms, they explicitly rejected the US’ maximum pressure policy (European Council 2019). Europe’s commitment to normalised economic relations and pragmatic dialogue was, and still is, coveted in Tehran not only because of the economic benefits but also because it diminishes the need for the Islamic Republic, which cherishes its strategic independence, to side permanently with Russia and China.¹⁷ There is little doubt, although perhaps scarce recognition, that the E3/EU’s defence of the JCPOA has influenced Tehran’s decision to keep breaches of the deal relatively modest and the inspection regime in place.

The US side presented far more problems under Trump. The E3/EU were careful to frame their defence of the JCPOA as linked to their interest in finding transatlantic solutions to the challenges emanating from Iran. While making discontent about the indiscriminate use of extraterritorial sanctions increasingly vocal (Hernandez 2020), the Europeans eschewed public clashes reminiscent of those over the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Thus, the E3/EU managed to avoid politicisation of their disagreement with Trump on Iran, thereby maintaining relevance as important interlocutors on Iran for the US foreign policy establishment, even amongst those opposed to the JCPOA.¹⁸

As President Biden ponders his options on how to re-engage with Iran, Europe’s efforts to remain relevant to the US are likely to pay off. If history is any guide, the E3/EU will continue to make tactical adjustments reflecting the sensitivities of the new president, who may not be ready to rush back into the deal. This conduct would be consistent with the E3/EU’s construction of the JCPOA as a bridge for US-Iranian diplomacy, which in turn is key to the European normative, security and strategic interests at stake in Iran’s nuclear issue. The pursuit of this set of interests in a transatlantic dimension is what has lent continuity to the E3/EU’s diplomacy over the years: they have managed divergence under Bush, convergence under Obama and conflict under Trump. With Biden, it is about managing re-engagement in an admittedly much worsened regional scenario. Tactics will once again change, but as far as the strategic rationale of the E3/EU’s Iran policy is concerned, continuity will prevail.

Conclusion

The story of Europe and Iran’s nuclear deal is divided into two chapters. The first is one of foresightedness, perseverance and success. The second is more about frustration and powerlessness, although also of tenacity. In the first part of the story, the E3/EU’s focus was on conflict prevention, consensus-building within the IAEA and the UNSC, and gradually forging transatlantic consensus. In the second, they could hardly do anything other than damage limitation. The reason for their struggles lies with the Trump administration, just as the reason for their prior success rested with its predecessors.

The E3/EU’s main success during the Bush and Obama administrations was in facilitating the conditions for the US to change the frame of Iran’s nuclear programme from ideology and geopolitics to non-proliferation. Iran’s NPT obligations provided a normative framework upon which both the US and Iran could agree without going through a preliminary process of attenuating their rivalry. Trump reversed this course entirely, subordinating non-proliferation again to the ideological-geopolitical clash with Iran. The E3/EU’s role as overseers and enforcers of the non-proliferation norm thus was overshadowed by Europe’s inability to influence the US-Iran ideological-geopolitical contest.

Nevertheless, the fact that the E3 and EU have managed to avoid the complete breakdown of the deal for three years, keeping the structure of a possible re-engagement between the US and Iran in place, should caution against dismissing their performance as unsuccessful and the EU’s related claim to the status of international security player as groundless. In fact, it is mainly, if not wholly thanks to the E3/EU that President Biden can still rely on the bridge of the JCPOA to re-engage Iran diplomatically. Pursuit of this objective has allowed the E3/EU to defend their interests in avoiding nuclear proliferation and a generalised conflict in the Middle East for the seventeen years since their initial outreach to Iran. While still conditional on a US-Iranian diplomatic breakthrough, this is no insignificant achievement. In these terms, the measure of the effectiveness of Europe’s diplomacy is less the successful functioning of a nuclear arrangement with Iran than the continued existence of a platform for US-Iranian nuclear negotiation.

The E3/EU’s performance with regard to Iran’s nuclear issue also sheds light on the EU’s potential to navigate the high politics of international security. Unable to engage in coercive diplomacy on their own, the E3/EU have nonetheless managed to influence first and then resist US policy so that their fundamental interests in non-proliferation and Middle Eastern security would not be permanently damaged. Even experts who stress Europe’s vulnerability to US pressure (Sauer [2015] provides a balanced assessment in this regard) recognise that the E3/EU’s strategic continuity has contributed to shaping the diplomatic process in a way that is consistent with their own assessment of the risk the Iranian nuclear issue posed to Europe.

During the process, the E3/EU have made use of whatever assets they had – the appeal to Iran of trade and investment relations with the EU, but also and more fundamentally their commitment to multilateral institutions and the transatlantic alliance – to advance their interests. This proves that there is a case to be made that dependence is not the same thing as powerlessness, and that the EU does not need to be fully autonomous to have impact, even if that impact is invariably destined to be contingent on forces the EU can influence but not control. The story of the nuclear deal is an unequivocal statement of the status of Europe as a second-tier security player, yet not an ineffective one.