In a powerful speech at the Free Iran 2024 World Summit, former Belgian Prime Minister and Member of the European Parliament Guy Verhofstadt urged the European Union to adopt a drastically new approach towards Iran. He called for an end to the EU’s failed strategy of appeasement and complacency towards the Iranian regime.
Addressing the President-Elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), Maryam Rajavi, Guy Verhofstadt said:
I will take this opportunity, Mrs Rajavi, to give a clear message today. A clear message to the new leadership of the European Union. As you know, after the European elections, on Thursday, last Thursday, a new leader of the European Union was appointed. There is also a new High Representative, Mrs Kaya Kallas. And I want to use this platform, this conference, together with you, to make a really urgent appeal to her and to the new leadership of Europe to drastically change the European Union’s strategy towards Iran and the mullahs in Iran.
The European Union’s strategy towards Iran over the last decade has been a failure. It has been a strategy of appeasement. It has been an attitude of complacency. And it has failed. Because the mullahs’ regime is actually continuing its evil activities, its criminal activities, not only against its own people, but also against the world. And the list of their atrocities, dear friends, is long today.
There is oppression, especially of women. Why women? Because women in Iran are the backbone of the democratic resistance in Iran. There are brutal executions, especially of political dissidents. Almost every day there is an execution of a brave Iranian man or woman.
We have seen a steady proliferation of nuclear weapons under the mullahs’ regime. And they are almost ready to have a nuclear bomb. And there is, let us not forget, the destabilisation of the whole Middle East. There is not a single terrorist organisation in that part of the world that is not being supported and financed by Iran today. That is the reality.
Be it Hamas, be it Hezbollah, be it the Houthis. And finally, it is the mullahs’ regime that has also begun to supply weapons to Russia in its brutal invasion of Ukraine. Now, such a regime, which oppresses women, which executes dissidents on a daily basis, which is responsible for nuclear proliferation, which destabilises the whole Middle East, and at the same time fuels another autocratic regime, because Russia no longer has any legitimacy. And it never had any legitimacy.
So my appeal today to the leaders of the 27 countries of the European Union, and in particular to the new leadership that has been elected and to the new High Representative, is that we need a new strategy. A new strategy that is bolder, that is more courageous, that is more effective. In fact, I would say that we need a strategy that is as bold and courageous as the Iranian people themselves. That is what we need.
And that means, dear friends, a strategy based on what I call four different pillars. The first pillar is the evidence itself. And it’s cruel that our political leaders are unable to provide this immediately. And that is the recognition of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation. What are they waiting for?
Secondly, the second part of this strategy must stop, which is to try, as some are doing, to revive the nuclear deal. Such a deal leads nowhere. The Iranian mullahs’ regime cannot be trusted. So no deal on this issue.
Thirdly, we need a new strategy, especially in the European Union, to free the hostages. And why? Because what is happening now is outrageous. Individual deals by countries with the regime. And instead of that, we need a more collective approach, by launching a coherent sanctions strategy against the whole regime, by increasing the sanctions package if every month the hostages are not released. And it is really scandalous that today the European Union is only able to sanction a few hundred, no more, responsible people within the mullahs’ regime.
And finally, Mrs Rajavi, the fourth pillar of such a new strategy, hopefully for the European Union and hopefully for the whole world, must be the recognition and cooperation with a democratic opposition that is seen as the only alternative, especially the NCRI, dear friends. It’s outrageous that we are unable to do this because the current regime has no legitimacy.
You talked about the 12 per cent who took part in the presidential elections. Let me put it another way: 88 per cent didn’t participate and boycotted the elections in Iran. And that’s more or less the same as the last parliamentary elections, because there, if I’m not mistaken, only seven percent participated. So that means 93 per cent boycotted the election. How can you have any legitimacy in our world when 93 per cent of your people are boycotting your regime?
That’s the reality on the ground. And that means we, the Western leaders, have to stop pretending that the mullahs are the normal representatives of the brave Iranian people. They are not and will never be the representatives of the Iranian people.
So, Mrs Rajavi, it’s time for the Western leaders to start engaging with you, with the NCRI, with all the democratic forces in Iran, and to start preparing for the future. Because there is a future for Iran, but it will be a future without the Shah, without the Mullah.
