EU designates Iran's Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organisation in policy shift

European Union foreign ministers on Thursday agreed to include the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on the bloc’s list of terrorist organisations, putting the powerful guards in a category similar to that of the militant groups Islamic State and al Qaeda, and marking a symbolic shift in Europe’s approach to Iran’s leadership.

“Repression cannot go unanswered,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas wrote on social media platform X.

“EU foreign ministers just took the decisive step of designating Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation. Any regime that kills thousands of its own people is working toward its own demise”, Kallas said.

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Set up after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution to protect the clerical ruling system, the IRGC has great sway in the country, controlling swathes of the economy and armed forces. The guards were also put in charge of Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programmes.

While some EU member states have previously pushed for the IRGC to be added to the EU’s terrorist list, others have been more cautious, fearing that it could hinder communication with Iran’s government and endanger European citizens inside the country.

But a brutal crackdown on a nationwide protest movement earlier this month, killing thousands of people, increased momentum for the move.

“It’s important that we send this signal that the bloodshed that we’ve seen, the bestiality of the violence that’s been used against protesters, cannot be tolerated,” Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel said in the morning.

France and Italy, which were previously reluctant to list the IRGC, lent their backing this week.

Despite concerns from some capitals that a decision to label the IRGC a terrorist organisation could lead to a complete breakdown in ties with Iran, Kallas told reporters in the morning that “the estimate is that still the diplomatic channels will remain open, even after the listing of the Revolutionary Guards”.

The EU also adopted sanctions targeting 15 individuals and six entities “responsible for serious human rights violations in Iran”, the Council of the European Union said in a statement.

Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni, Prosecutor General Mohammad Movahedi Azad, a number of IRGC commanders and some senior law enforcement officials were among those sanctioned, the statement said.

Entities sanctioned include the Iranian Audio-Visual Media Regulatory Authority and several software companies which the EU said were “involved in censoring activities, trolling campaigns on social media, spreading disinformation and misinformation online, or contributed to the widespread disruption of access to the internet by developing surveillance and repression tools”.

The EU also sanctioned four individuals and six entities connected to Iran’s drone and missile programme and “decided to extend the prohibition on the export, sale, transfer or supply from the EU to Iran to include further components and technologies used in the development and production of UAVs and missiles”, the council said.