Madam President, the recent massive anti-government protests were motivated by the rage swiftly spreading among the poorest in Iran. Little was done to alleviate the long-standing unemployment problem, dramatically affecting young people in particular. The 2018 budget, cobbling together President Rouhani's neoliberal agenda and Ayatollah Khamenei's clerical fiat, exposed the regime's disconnect over spending on religious institutions and military foreign adventures, such as in Syria, while imposing social cuts and increases in fuel prices, at a time when several provinces face drought and environmental degradation. The elite's misappropriation and embezzlement rightly outraged Iranian citizens to the point that today the Iranian Parliament was forced to cancel allocations to so-called special entities. Reforms for accountability to attract investments and create jobs are needed.

The EU should continue to work with Iran to make it comply with the criteria of the Financial Action Task Force. Fighting money laundering and corruption is in Iran's and the EU's interests. Iran's law against drug trafficking was amended in a way which we hope will spare thousands of citizens from execution. It has to be a benchmark for the judicial reform that is much needed in Iran, which needs to be further pressed by the EU to abolish the death penalty and to stop and address glaring human rights violations.

We call for the immediate release of political prisoners, including the recently jailed protesters and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a dual British-Iranian citizen jailed in Evin since 2016. At the same time, the EU must call on the international community to reject all unilateral dangerous moves by President Trump, Israel, Saudi Arabia or any others to undermine the nuclear deal. The EU must be prepared with contingency measures to counter any attempts to block the JCPOA.