All tagged Heiko Maas

Can Europe Defend Itself And Iran From U.S. Sanctions?

◢ In an op-ed published in the German newspaper Handelsblatt, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas declared that the “the US and Europe have been drifting apart for years.” In order to defend the JCPOA and protect European companies active in Iran from U.S. sanctions, Maas has outlined three initiatives: “establishing payment channels independent of the US, a European monetary fund, and an independent SWIFT [payments] system.” This has given many in Iran hope that Europe might still be able to create an “economic package” to save the JCPOA. But Maas’s vision is not an economic package. It is an economic process, which may prove transformative, but only in the long term.

Europe's SWIFT Problem

◢ German foreign minister Heiko Maas recently penned an article in which he said that "it’s essential that we strengthen European autonomy by establishing payment channels that are independent of the US, creating a European Monetary Fund and building up an independent Swift system." So what exactly is Maas's quibble with SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication? SWIFT is a proprietary messaging system that banks can use communicate information about cross border payments. This November, U.S. President Trump has threatened to impose sanctions on SWIFT if it doesn't remove a set of Iranian banks from the SWIFT directory.