Nuclear Multilateralism and Iran
Drawing on the authors personal experience, this book presents an insiders chronology and policy analysis of the EUs role in the nuclear negotiations with Iran.
The European Union strives to be a global player, a soft power leader that can influence international politics and state behavior. Yet critics argue that the EUs Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) remains largely ineffective and incoherent. The EUs early and continuous involvement in the effort to dissuade Iran from developing nuclear weapons can be viewed as a test case for the EU as a global actor. As Chair of the European Parliaments delegation for relations with Iran, Tarja Cronberg had a ringside seat in the negotiations to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Drawing on her experiences leading a parliamentary delegation to Iran and interviews with officials, legislators and opposition leaders in nearly every country participating in the negotiations, as well as reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency, parliaments and independent experts, the author illustrates an insiders strategic understanding of the negotiations. Intersecting history, politics, economics, culture and the broader security context, this book not only delivers a unique analysis of this historic deal and the twelve-year multilateral pursuit of it, but draws from it pertinent lessons for European policy makers for the future.
This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear proliferation, EU policy, diplomacy and international relations in general.
Tarja Cronberg is a Distinguished Associate Fellow with the European Security Programme at SIPRI, Sweden, and a member of the Board of the European Leadership Network. She is a former member of the European Parliament where she chaired the delegation for relations with Iran.
Nuclear Multilateralism and Iran
Inside EU Negotiations
Tarja Cronberg
First published 2017
by Routledge
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2017 Tarja Cronberg
The right of Tarja Cronberg to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cronberg, Tarja, author.
Title: Nuclear multilateralism and Iran : inside EU negotiations / Tarja Cronberg.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016048452| ISBN 9781138283855 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781315269962 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Nuclear nonproliferationGovernment policyEuropean Union countries. | Nuclear weaponsIran. | Common Foreign and Security Policy. | European Union countriesForeign relationsIran. | IranForeign relationsEuropean Union countries.
Classification: LCC JZ5675 .C76 2017 | DDC 327.1/7470955dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016048452
ISBN: 978-1-138-28385-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-26996-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by diacriTech, Chennai
Contents
As a researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, I had written a report on nuclear weapons and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as background for the 2010 NPT Review Conference. Then, in June 2011, I became a Member of the European Parliament (MEP). A few months later, I was elected Chair of the Parliaments delegation for relations with Iran. Now a politician, my interest in nuclear weapons and the role of international treaties assumed a new perspective and urgency. The Iran nuclear issue was at the frontlines of these issues, with the possibility of sanctions up for debate within the EU.
The Parliament had, of course, no role in the actual negotiations. These were carried out by a team directly under EU High Representative Catherine Ashton. The Lisbon Treaty requires that EU foreign and security policy is to be carried out in cooperation with the Parliament. Consequently, we, members of the foreign affairs committee, received regular briefings on the status of the negotiations and related EU policies. My role as Chair of the delegation for relations with Iran was, according to the mandate for delegations, to maintain relations with Iran and inform the parliament.
The Iran delegation arranged hearings and invited experts to speak at our meetings. We had regular contacts with think tanks and other organizations, especially on human rights, working on Iran. The delegations main contact with Iran was the Iranian Embassy in Brussels. Although we were supposed to travel to Iran for interparliamentary dialogues, this turned out to be difficult. In 2011, as the delegation was about to leave, our visas were delayed by the embassy. Just a few days prior, MEK, an Iranian opposition group, had staged an event in the European Parliament.
In 2012, our trip was to take place immediately after the European Parliament had awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to two Iranians: the human rights lawyer Nasrin Soutudeh and the film instructor Janar Panahi. Our visit was widely publicized and we got thousands of letters from Iranian opposition groups others telling us not go. The US Senate sent a letter to President of the Parliament Martin Schulz asking the delegation to reconsider its visit and that the President does what he can to indefinitely postpone this ill-advised trip at this sensitive time.
The president was supportive of the trip, but the EP presidium decided, the day before we were to leave, that we had to receive permission to meet the Sakharov Prize winners in prison, as a precondition for the trip. The EP sent this message to the Iranian embassy late on a Friday night. The ambassador called me the next day, a few hours before the delegation members were to leave for Iran, that it had not been able to arrange the visit: the time was limited and he had not been able to get in touch with officials in Iran late Friday night as their weekend had started and it was prayer time. I canceled the trip and we unpacked our suitcases.
In December 2013, the delegation finally made it to Tehran, half a year after the surprise election of the moderate President Hassan Rouhani and a couple of weeks after the interim Joint Plan of Action was agreed on November 24. We met with the official Iran: parliamentarians, the foreign minister, former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and representatives of the newly elected presidents cabinet. We also met with civil society: environmental, feminist and citizen groups. We managed to arrange a meeting with both Sakharov Prize winners, now under house arrest. We had an interesting dialogue with the ambassadors of the EU member states in Tehran and the representatives of different branches of UN institutions.