According
to Reuters, the Council decided to remove five financial entities (Industrial
Bank, Popular Credit Bank, Saving Bank, Agricultural Cooperative Bank and
Syrian Arab Airlines) from the list of entities subject to the freezing of
funds and economic resources and to allow funds and economic resources to be
made available to the Central Bank of Syria.
The EU has also suspended sectoral measures in the oil, gas,
electricity, and transport sectors and introduced exemptions to the ban on
banking relations between Syrian banks and financial institutions in the EU to
facilitate transactions for humanitarian and reconstruction purposes, as well
as for the energy and transport sectors.
The bloc will monitor the country’s situation to guarantee
that suspensions remain appropriate with Kaja Kallas, the EU's top diplomat,
stressing that "if everything does not go right, then we are also ready to
put the sanctions back".
"Any kind of government needs to be all-inclusive and
taking into account all the different groups that are in Syria,” she said.
Most of
the EU's sanctions were imposed following Bashar al-Assad's violent crackdown
on Syrian protesters in 2011, including broad restrictions on trade, financial
transactions, and key industries such as energy and transport.
The sanctions led to the collapse of EU-Syria economic
relations, with trade flows worth €396 million in 2023.
The regime of Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December last
year by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has since been
calling for the lifting of wide-ranging sanctions to help the war-torn
country's economy.
There have also been calls
to remove HTS and its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa from international terrorist
lists, but the Council decided to maintain such lists in relation to the
al-Assad regime, as well as those on arms trafficking, dual-use goods, the
chemical weapons sector, and illicit drug trafficking, among others.
The EU's blacklist, which was renewed in November, covers
318 individuals and 86 entities. All are subject to an assets freeze and a
travel ban.
More than 90% of Syrians live below the poverty line and at
least 16.5 million people across Syria rely on some form of humanitarian
assistance to meet their basic needs, according to a report by the UN Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Last
week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned that sweeping EU, US, and UK sanctions on
Syria are hampering the country's economic recovery and preventing millions of
Syrians from accessing essential services such as electricity, health care,
water, and education.
“Rather than using broad sectoral sanctions as leverage for
shifting political objectives, Western governments should recognize their
direct harm to civilians and take meaningful steps to lift restrictions that
impede access to basic rights,” said Hiba Zayadin, senior Syria researcher at
HRW.
“A piecemeal approach of temporary exemptions and limited
waivers is not enough. Sanctions that harm civilians should immediately be
lifted, not refined,” Zayadin added.
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