EU set for agreement to ease Syria sanctions as foreign ministers gather

Legal texts that would enable a suspension are yet to be written but could focus on economic sanctions

Shoppers walk through the old city market in Damascus, as a new Syria emerges after 13 years of civil war. AP

The EU's 27 countries are expected to agree on Monday to easing a number of sanctions on Syria with the aim of boosting its post-Assad recovery, senior EU officials have said.

How the EU moves forward on amending its sanctions regime is being closely scrutinised after the US eased restrictions on Syria to increase humanitarian aid earlier this month. No such move has yet taken place at EU level, in large part due to a slower decision-making process that involves unanimous support from all member states. "We're talking about it," a senior diplomat said. "It's more a question of how exactly we do it. I'm pretty confident that we'll get there."

The EU issued sanctions against Syria following the Assad regime's human rights violations against its population after a 2011 peaceful uprising that morphed into civil war. The sanctions target a wide range of sectors, including finance, transport and energy, as well as members of the Assad family.

European governments say they want to support Syria and are receptive to requests made by the new authority in Damascus, Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS), to urgently lift sanctions in order to rebuild the war-torn and poverty-stricken nation. "Removing the economic sanctions is the key for stability of Syria," the country's new Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan Al Shibani said in Davos this week.

Suspension plan

In Brussels, there is a hope that a sequenced easing of sanctions would give the EU more leverage on Damascus. "Suspending the sanctions instead of completely lifting them gives us the opportunity to continue to monitor the human rights situation in the country," the senior EU diplomat said, speaking to journalists on the condition of anonymity.

In a proposal seen by The National that was sent last week to member states, the EU's diplomatic service – the European External Action Service – called for considering "the suspension of a number of economic (sectoral and individual) measures in order to send a strong political message of support to the Syrian people, while doing so in a step-by-step approach".

Time frame and scope

What this sequencing will look like will ultimately be decided by member states. "We want to give a strong political signal that sanctions will be lifted because it's time for the country to be rehabilitated, and hopefully, [there will be] reconstruction," a senior EU official said. "At the same time, there are a lot of uncertainties on the governance of Syria," they added. HTS remains listed at UN, US and EU level for its former ties with Al Qaeda.

EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas would like to see Russia retreat from its military bases in Syria. Reuters

The EU, which has established cautious relations with HTS, wants to make sure that it can reinstate sanctions if it feels that human rights violations are taking place. EU leaders have said they would pay particular attention to the inclusion of Syria's minorities in the political transition, and women's rights.

The process of reinstating sanctions at a later stage, called snapback, was described by the senior EU official as "the typical instrument [used] when you want to do something, but you are not entirely sure that the other part of the story will respond to your actions". A snapback mechanism was included in a failed 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Some points that are still under discussion include time frame and scope. One option would be to lift all sectoral sanctions on Syria but only for a certain amount of time – probably one year. They could be reinstated with a unanimous decision if violations take place in Syria. Another option would be to ease only a limited number of sanctions and issue conditions to lift the rest. Meanwhile, there is broad consensus that sanctions on the Assad family and Syria's chemical weapons programme should remain.

Asked how long it could take for the European External Action Service to finalise the legal acts that would lift sanctions, the senior diplomat said it could take several weeks. The EEAS cannot move forward until there is full agreement among the 27 member states. In its proposal, the EEAS suggested "making the humanitarian exemption open-ended to further facilitate the provision of assistance to the Syrian civilian population".

While the EU's foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas has publicly said she would like to see Russia retreat from its military bases in Syria, diplomats noted that it was unlikely that this would be a precondition to easing sanctions. "We continue asking for the end of these military bases. They [HTS] responded that they will see that in the future," the senior EU official said.