After the Trump administration’s decision to leave the Iran nuclear deal, the European Union is determined to keep the agreement on life support. It’s not yet clear how it will salvage the framework without Washington’s involvement, but ditching the dollar in favor of the euro in payments for Iranian oil is reportedly part of the plan.
Speaking after a meeting of foreign ministers of Iran, the UK, France and Germany on Wednesday, the EU’s top foreign-policy official, Federica Mogherini, said “we are working on finding a practical solution … in a short delay of time.”
Measures, she said as reported by Reuters, would aim to allow Iran to continue exporting oil.
“We have a quite clear list of issues to address. We are operating in a very difficult context … I cannot talk about legal or economic guarantees but I can talk about serious, determined, immediate work from the European side,” Mogherini emphasized.
Russian media scooped what may be one of those measures to allow Iran to keep the oil pumping: dumping the dollar. According to a diplomatic source who spoke with RIA Novosti, the EU is “planning to switch payments to the euro for its oil purchases from Iran,” as paraphrased by RT.
“I’m privy to the information that the EU is going to shift from dollar to euro to pay for crude from Iran,” the source told the news agency.
The move would add to other efforts under way to reduce reliance on the dollar, including Iran’s decision in April to report foreign-currency amounts in euros.