Skip to main content

Why Europe just made Rouhani’s effort to exit FATF blacklist even harder

The E3’s seeming tying of the launch of its new trade mechanism to Iran’s passing of controversial bills has energized hard-line calls for refusal to accede to the FATF’s action plan.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif addresses a news conference following nuclear negotiations with European Union's foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is leading talks with Iran on behalf of the six world powers, at the United Nations in Geneva October 16, 2013. Iran called two days of nuclear talks with six world powers, United States, Russia, France, Britain, Germany and China, that ended on Wednesday "fruitful" and said it hoped for a new phase in relations. He said two sides had for t

As Iran could soon pass four controversial bills that would remove it from the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) blacklist, the so-called E3 (Britain, France and Germany) joint statement on the unveiling of a new trade mechanism has provided Iranian hard-liners with a pretext to firmly proceed with their plans.

Iran's government has submitted four FATF-related bills to parliament, which has passed them after extensive, fierce debates and fervent opposition of hard-line parliament members. However, the destiny of two of the bills is set to be determined by the Expediency Council given that the conservative-dominated Guardian Council has rejected them while parliament has not accepted a number of the Guardian Council's pointing out of issues. Of note, the FATF is an international, intergovernmental organization created in 1989 to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. Iran's presence on the FATF blacklist was suspended in 2016. At its latest meeting in October, the FATF gave Iran until later this month to undertake reforms that will bring it in line with global banking norms.

Access the Middle East news and analysis you can trust

Join our community of Middle East readers to experience all of Al-Monitor, including 24/7 news, analyses, memos, reports and newsletters.

Subscribe

Only $100 per year.