It’s time to end the EU’s Assad-era sanctions on Syria

As the European Union prepares for its annual review of sanctions imposed on Syria under Council Decision 2011/273/CFSP and Council Regulation (EU) No 36/2012, it faces a moment of reckoning — an opportunity to demonstrate whether its policies not only continue to be principled and legal, but also in line with its strategic interests. In their internal deliberations and voting this week, I call on the EU to let the entire sanctions regime on Syria collapse unconditionally and immediately.

From the outset of the Syrian conflict in 2011, the EU distinguished itself as a principled actor. It stood with the Syrian people at a time when doing so carried real geopolitical costs. While others equivocated or normalized relations with the Assad regime, the EU imposed a robust sanctions regime to constrain state violence, deny Assad access to revenue, and pressure him on political reform. Over the years, Europe welcomed more than 1.3 million Syrian refugees and committed close to $40 billion in humanitarian and resilience assistance. It extended accountability through its national courts, prosecuting regime officials under universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity. There is no doubt: The EU was on the right side of history.

No longer fit for purpose

But history has moved on. The Assad regime as it existed in 2011 — a coherent and centralized apparatus responsible for mass repression — no longer governs Syria. The political and security landscape has fragmented, the regime’s institutions have decayed, and new dynamics of local governance, international engagement, and conflict resolution have taken hold. In this context, the legal foundation of the EU’s sanctions regime — namely, that it is directed against a specific government committing crimes — has eroded. The sanctions are no longer serving the purpose for which they were designed. The Council Decision and Regulation on which they were founded no longer correspond to the political reality on the ground, nor do they bring the EU closer to its current foreign policy objectives, including accountability, inclusiveness, and respect for minorities’ and women's rights.

Indeed, continuing these measures now amounts to a dangerous repurposing of the legal framework. The EU appears to be using the Assad-era sanctions not as a response to defined human rights violations or international threats, but as a tool of vague political leverage — hoping perhaps to extract reforms from a post-conflict state or to balance its position vis-à-vis other international stakeholders, such as Cyprus’s desire to maintain sanctions over fears of a deal between Damascus and Ankara demarcating their maritime borders. This instrumentalization of sanctions contradicts the principled approach the EU has long claimed as its moral compass. Sanctions regimes must be grounded in law, targeted in scope, and consistent in their application. When their original rationale no longer applies, they must be repealed.

Even more troubling are the practical effects of maintaining these outdated sanctions. While the EU has introduced limited exemptions and suspensions — nominally to facilitate humanitarian assistance and economic recovery — their impact has been largely symbolic. Due to widespread overcompliance and risk aversion, financial institutions and private companies continue to avoid Syria altogether. This is because the fear of inadvertent violations or future penalties outweighs the narrow opportunities provided by legal exemptions. As a result, economic actors are unwilling to engage, trade is stifled, reconstruction is blocked, and Syrians on the ground remain trapped in poverty and dependency.

This paralysis is compounded by the continued targeting of core state institutions — including the Syrian Central Bank and state-owned oil companies — that are essential to any national economic recovery. Even where European policymakers have sought to encourage limited re-engagement, the blanket nature of these sanctions has made implementation impossible. No meaningful recovery can occur without a functioning financial system, access to capital, and the ability to import and export basic goods. Current sanctions actively undermine these foundations. They are not holding power to account — they are holding the Syrian people hostage to a framework that has long outlived its political utility.

Strategic and geopolitical interests

There is also a clear strategic imperative to lift the sanctions: Europeans are shooting themselves in the foot by keeping Assad-era sanctions in place. Syrians continue to be one the largest communities of asylum seekers in the European Union. While conflict and repression were once the primary drivers of displacement, today it is economic desperation that compels people to flee. If Europe is serious about addressing migration at its source, it must create conditions conducive to return. That means enabling reconstruction, restoring essential services, and allowing Syrians to rebuild their lives with dignity. Continuing to paralyze Syria’s economy through outdated sanctions not only undermines these objectives, it reinforces the very dynamics that keep Syrians dependent on external aid and removed from civic engagement.

Syria’s continued isolation is also against EU’s geopolitical interests. Such actions are pushing the government closer to global rivals like Russia and China and empowering the radical wing within the victorious military factions, which argues that the “West did not sanction Syria to help its people, but to keep it weak and defeated forever.” The continuation of Assad-era sanctions, divorced from their original context, undermines the very values that once justified them. These sanctions also lag far behind diplomacy. While multilateral and international institutions, such as the World Bank, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the Islamic Development Bank, have shown strong appetite for engagement with Syria, sanctions remain a major obstacle to that, creating an image of an increasingly aggressive stance toward Syrians.

While the EU has introduced some suspensions and exemptions, their impact has been diluted by the overhang of remaining restrictions and the chilling effect of overcompliance in global financial and trade networks. Economic actors — both inside and outside Syria — remain reluctant to engage due to uncertainty and risk-aversion, which is compounded by the continued targeting of core state institutions, such as the Central Bank and the oil sector regulator. As long as these institutions remain sanctioned, exemptions will fail to translate into meaningful economic re-engagement, depriving the population of the preconditions for meeting their basic needs and rebuilding services. Furthermore, due to excessive derisking, the mere presence of sanctions of any form creates little incentive in Europe to engage with Syria.

There's a better way and a precedent

To be clear, lifting Assad-era sanctions should not mean abandoning accountability. There are still individuals and entities — inside and outside Syria — sanctioned under the same EU framework who are responsible for grave crimes and ongoing repression. But these actors should be targeted through a more appropriate and modern mechanism: the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime (GHRSR), adopted in December 2020. This framework allows for targeted sanctions against perpetrators of serious human rights violations anywhere in the world, with a clear legal basis and no need to sustain obsolete, country-specific instruments. By transferring these listings to the GHRSR, the EU can continue to champion justice without obstructing recovery or violating the principle of legal proportionality.

The case of Serbia and Montenegro provides a compelling precedent for how the EU can respond decisively and constructively to political change in post-authoritarian states. Sanctions imposed during the era of Slobodan Milosevic were formally repealed in 2001, less than a year after his ouster. This swift action reflected a clear recognition by the EU that continued economic restrictions would hinder democratic consolidation and delay regional stabilization. By opting for formal repeal rather than quiet non-renewal, the EU sent an unambiguous signal: It was prepared to support reform and reconstruction, provided there was a genuine break from past abuses. The same logic should apply to Syria today.

While the EU will retain its ability to impose sanctions in the future as it sees fit, legitimate concerns over the conduct of the current government in Damascus can be communicated through numerous other tools, some already in the toolkit, such as the promise of development or reconstruction aid and terror-related listings by the UN. Others can be devised, such as the imposition of new sanctions, if need be. However, the hammer of Assad-era sanctions should not make the current government in Damascus a nail.

This is not about rewarding impunity or retreating from the EU’s commitment to human rights. On the contrary, it is about restoring credibility, coherence, and effectiveness to the bloc’s external action. It is about ensuring that sanctions are tied to clear objectives, enforced through appropriate legal frameworks, and assessed in light of their actual impact. Most of all, it is about giving Syrians a fair chance at recovery, after more than a decade of war, repression, displacement, and economic ruin.

The EU has been a moral compass throughout the Syrian conflict. It should not abandon that role now by clinging to obsolete instruments that punish civilians more than perpetrators. The time has come to turn the page. Let the Assad-era sanctions expire.

Karam Shaar is the director of Karam Shaar Advisory Limited and co-founder of the Observatory of Political and Economic Networks. This piece was written with input from Vittorio Serracapriola.

Photo by Michele Spatari/NurPhoto via Getty Images