Research Fellow
German-Iranian Business ‘Still Strong’
German business – and the country’s regulatory authorities – have come in for criticism for a seemingly relaxed stance to the enforce ment of EU sanctions from the Jerusalem Post.
In an article on 9 July, the newspaper reported that it had obtained an uncensored list from late 2011 which showed hundreds of German and Iranian enterprises ‘in flourishing trade relation - ship’ despite the country’s construction of the Fordow medium-level uranium enrich ment facility buried into the side of a mountain near Qom ‘and the fact that the German equipment could be used to build more underground nuclear facilities.’
The article names Baden-Württemberg-based engineer ing giant Herrenknecht AG as delivering heavy tunneling equipment to Iran which has the capacity to drill down to depths of 6,000 metres. The newspaper has obtained a response from the company which insists that it has ‘comprehensively ensured that Herrenknecht excavation engineering and services solely reach projects which clearly pursue civil applications [metro tunnel construction, sewage pipes and water supply lines].’
Asked by WorldECR to give further details of his research, the article’s author, Jerusalem Post Europe correspondent and Foundation for Defense of Democracies research fellow, Benjamin Weinthal, said: ‘I analyzed a list containing German companies working with their Iranian partners in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Many of the German companies appear to be in breach of U.S., EU and UN Security Council sanctions, largely because they are delivering dual-use goods and continue to work in Iran’s sanctioned energy sector.’ Weinthal went on to say, ‘Many other German firms are shipping dual-use merchandise to Iran. In addition, there are scores of German companies that fall into a grey zone and porous German export control regulations fail to enforce sanctions targeting Iran… Many EU countries,
including Italy, France, Finland, Sweden and Austria simply fail to clamp down on sanctions enforcement.’
Commenting on the article, a source close to regulatory authorities told WorldECR he believed that the underlying message of Weinthal’s article was that ‘all trade with Iran is bad’. This, he said, was a political issue not related to enforcement, pointing out that EU sanctions do not amount to a total embargo on all trade.