July 17, 2001
European Union foreign ministers made a strongly worded appeal to the United States yesterday not to extend its controversial Iran Libya Sanctions Act, saying it would harm bilateral relations.
The Iran Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA), which provides a basis for imposing sanctions against third-country firms doing business with Libya or Iran, expires on August 5. The EU has always opposed the act, arguing that it violates international law.
"Unilateral sanctions laws with extraterritorial effects, such as ILSA, create unnecessary and unhelpful differences between us, adversely affecting the development of transatlantic cooperation and undermining our joint endeavour to fight terrorism and proliferation," the ministers said in a statement.
"They violate international law and state sovereignty and are prejudicial to the rights and interests of the European Union," the EU statement said. Under an agreement reached between the EU and the previous U.S. administration, Washington never pressed sanctions against any EU firms with links to either country.
"If the Americans took action against any EU company and seized its assets, as the ILSA allows them to do, that would have serious consequences," said one EU diplomat. "Under our May 1998 understanding (with the Clinton administration), if any individual EU state is affected by sanctions, we would go straight to the World Trade Organisation."
In yesterday's statement, issued during a monthly meeting of the ministers in Brussels, the EU said it had been cooperating actively with the United States in fighting international terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
