Intel: EU renews sanctions on Syrian regime

The European Union today renewed its sanctions against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for another year. The sanctions — which ban oil imports, certain investments, technology transfer that could aid the regime in repression and freezes Syrian Central Bank assets inside the EU — were first initiated in 2011.

Why it matters: The Trump administration has rallied its allies to keep up sanctions on the Assad regime and not to provide reconstruction money to Damascus after nine years of civil war.

The United States argues that money will be squandered by the mafia-like Assad regime, which Washington suggests should not be rewarded for making war on its own population in response to the 2011 Arab Spring protests.

A combination of war, regime corruption and sanctions have devastated Syria’s economy, and the country’s currency has plummeted to all-time lows. More than 80% of Syrians now live below the poverty line, and a loaf of bread costs some 20 times what it did at the start of the conflict, according to Rim Turkmani, director of the Syria Conflict Research Program at the London School of Economics, who spoke at a Quincy Institute event in Washington earlier this month. The US and EU provide humanitarian aid in regime-controlled areas, though experts say the informal war economy has only worsened corruption.