May 13, 2018

European Union leaders were taken by surprise when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held his somewhat theatrical press conference on April 30, sharing with the world that Israel took possession of Iran’s nuclear program secret archives. The EU, both headquarters and its main member states, considered Netanyahu’s presentation to be directed at them, as it was clear that the US administration knew about these documents. In fact, Brussels realized that the White House, the CIA and the secretary of state were fully briefed by Israel. The EU was not.

A senior EU official close to EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini told Al-Monitor that Brussels highly appreciates Israel’s intelligence capacities, as well as the rhetorical skills of the prime minister. Yet the dramatic aspect of these revelations lied more in the operation of retrieving the physical documents than in their content.

The Europeans asked the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna to look deeper into the documents. Indeed, most of what Netanyahu revealed from the secret archives about Iran's previous nuclear plans was already known to the EU.

According to the official, it was precisely the knowledge of these Iranian nuclear ambitions that led to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. He claimed that Netanyahu’s description of the Iranian secret documents offered no evidence that Tehran was not complying with the articles of the deal. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said, “President [Barack] Obama and the leaders of Europe did not make the Iran deal out of trust of the Iranian intentions, on the contrary, and therefore the most meticulous inspection system was put in place.”

According to the official, Netanyahu’s press conference only strengthened the resolve of the EU leadership to keep the Iran deal intact. The EU is ready to negotiate in the P5+1 framework additions to the deal, on the durability of the agreement, the Iranian ballistic missile program and its aggressive regional activities. This was proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron in his meeting with US President Donald Trump on April 24. Macron proposed to add such elements to the agreement, not to replace it by another.