{"id":970434,"date":"2026-05-19T06:36:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T06:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/970434\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T06:36:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T06:36:19","slug":"eu-lifts-assad-era-sanctions-on-key-syrian-ministries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/970434\/","title":{"rendered":"EU lifts Assad-era sanctions on key Syrian ministries"},"content":{"rendered":"

Syria<\/a> has welcomed the EU’s decision to lift sanctions on seven Syrian government entities, including the Interior and Defence Ministries.<\/p>\n

The bloc also renewed sanctions against \u200bindividuals \u200band entities \u200blinked to former Syrian president \u2060Bashar Al Assad<\/a>\u2019s government for another year.<\/p>\n

Those listed \u200bremain \u2060subject to asset \u200cfreezes and travel bans, while EU<\/a> citizens and companies are \u200bbarred from making funds available to them.<\/p>\n

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al Shibani welcomed the extension of sanctions on former regime officials who were involved in \u201ccrimes against our people\u201d. <\/p>\n

The EU said the delisting of the seven entities was intended to support \u201cthe strengthening of the EU\u2019s engagement with Syria\u201d after the fall of Assad in late 2024 and the installation of a new government led by President Ahmad Al Shara.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look forward to strengthening co-operation with our partners in the European Union in a way that serves the interests of our people and is based on mutual respect, shared interests and support for the reconstruction process,\u201d Mr Shibani wrote on X. <\/p>\n

The EU \u200blifted all economic sanctions on Syria in \u200bMay \u200c2025 while keeping in place measures against members of the former Assad \u2060administration and those imposed on security grounds.<\/p>\n

The bloc said \u2060networks tied to the former government still retained influence and could undermine Syria\u2019s political transition and reconciliation efforts. Earlier this month, the EU also restored the full application of its co-operation \u200bagreement with Syria, saying the conditions that led to its suspension during Assad\u2019s crackdown on protesters in 2011 were no longer present. <\/p>\n

Mr Al Shibani visited Brussels last week for the first high-level EU-Syria political talks since Belgium broke off ties with Damascus at the start of the civil war in 2011. <\/p>\n

It came five months after the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen<\/a> and the European Council president Antonio Costa met Mr Al Shara in Damascus and announced a \u20ac620 million ($721 million) aid package.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Syria has welcomed the EU’s decision to lift sanctions on seven Syrian government entities, including the Interior and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":970435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,1699,74087,1715,1426,6500],"class_list":["post-970434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-foreign-desk-team","tag-standard","tag-story","tag-syria"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116599861129991233","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=970434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/970435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=970434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=970434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=970434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}