The leaders of the countries of the European Union (EU) agreed on Wednesday night to adopt new sanctions against Iranian producers of drones and missiles, announced the president of the European Council, Charles Michel.
“We have decided to adopt sanctions against Iran. It is a clear message that we want to send,” Michel said during a brief contact with the press at the end of the opening day of a summit of the European Union in Brussels.
The idea, added the senior Belgian official, “is to hit the companies that are necessary for drones and missiles.” “We have to isolate Iran,” he reinforced.
The draft conclusions, negotiated over several days, indicated that the EU “was ready” to adopt these sanctions, but clearly the position evolved during the day.
The EU has already adopted sanctions against Iran for the transfer of drones and their technology to Russia for use in Ukraine.
In the Conclusions of the opening day of the summit, the leaders noted that the EU “will take restrictive measures against Iran, especially in relation to unmanned aerial vehicles and missiles.”
The summit also “strongly and unequivocally” condemned Iran's attack on Israel with drones and missiles, and reiterated the bloc's commitment “to Israel's security and regional stability.”
The leaders of the EU countries added that they were prepared to “work with all our partners to avoid an escalation of tensions in the region, especially in Lebanon.”
In Wednesday's session, European leaders again discussed the situation in Ukraine, and highlighted the urgency of transferring air defense equipment to that country.
The text of the summit conclusions “underlines the need to urgently provide air defense to Ukraine and to accelerate and intensify the delivery of all necessary military assistance.”
Air defense, a critical point
The delivery of air defense equipment to Ukraine marked part of the day.
Arriving at the meeting, Germany's head of government, Olaf Scholz, urged the other countries in the bloc to follow Berlin's example and send Patriot air defense equipment to Ukraine.
As has become customary, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, connected via videoconference to the summit in Brussels and insisted on requests for air defense equipment.
Zelensky reinforced that Western allies had successfully helped Israel intercept Iranian drones and missiles, and called for them to do the same with Ukraine in its defense against Russian missiles.
“In Ukraine, unfortunately, we do not have the same level of defense that we saw in the Middle East a few days ago (…) The skies of Ukraine and the skies of our neighbors deserve the same security,” Zelensky highlighted in his message to the leaders of the EU.
On Wednesday afternoon, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas had told reporters that what happened in the skies over Israel “shows that we can do more.”
“We can provide air defense to Ukraine in the same way, so that it is capable of preventing such attacks,” the Estonian leader added.
Ukraine admits that it is running out of systems to shoot down Russian missiles and gifts, at a time when Russia is multiplying its bombings of Ukrainian infrastructure.
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