EU agrees blacklisting of Hezbollah

Until now, the EU has resisted pressure from Washington and Israel to blacklist Hezbollah, arguing that it could fuel instability in Lebanon, where the group is part of the government, and add to tensions in the Middle East.

Britain has sought to persuade its EU peers since May to put the Shia Muslim group’s military wing on the bloc’s terrorism list, citing evidence that it was behind a deadly bus bombing in Bulgaria last year.

Blacklisting

The blacklisting would mean imposing visa bans on individuals and asset freezes on organizations associated with the group.

“It is good that the EU has decided to call Hezbollah what it is: a terrorist organization,” said Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans.

“I’m satisfied that we took this important step today, by dealing with the military wing of Hezbollah, freezing its assets, hindering its fundraising and thereby limiting its capacity to act,” Timmermans said.

But the implementation would be complicated since officials would have to unravel the links between the different wings within Hezbollah’s organizational network and see who could be targeted for belonging to the military wing.

It could take up to two weeks before names of individuals and organizations are added to the list, officials said.

The Iranian-backed group plays a pivotal role in Lebanese politics, dominating the government since 2011, and has since sent its members to bolster Syria’s President Bashar Assad forces in their assault of rebel-held areas.

Hezbollah officials in Beirut declined to immediately comment on the EU decision but in a May speech Hezbollah chief Sheik Hassan Nasrallah had said any such move would be no more than “ink on paper.”

Israel welcomed the decision. It fought a bitter month-long war with Hezbollah in 2006 and does not differentiate between the groups political and military wings.

Israel has accused Hezbollah of carrying out attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets around the world. Hezbollah has denied involvement in some and not commented on others.

Bulgaria bus bombing

Earlier this year, Hezbollah was accused of involvement in last year’s attack in the Black Sea resort of Burgas in Bulgaria, which killed five Israeli tourists and one Bulgarian. It has refuted that allegation.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said that evidence from that attack in Bulgaria was enough of an impetus for the move. Westerwelle said that “we have to answer this, and the answer is” blacklisting Hezbollah’s the military wing.

The attack on EU territory plus a Cyprus criminal court decision in March finding a Hezbollah member guilty of helping to plan attacks on Israelis on the Mediterranean island has galvanized EU diplomacy in moving toward action.