German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday that the European Union is not "shying away" from criticizing Iran's crimes, including its human rights violations. However, she pointed out that the EU's criteria for designating terrorist groups require an organization to carry out terror attacks in an EU member state and that there is currently no evidence to suggest that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fulfills that criterion.
Baerbock said the sanctions imposed against the Tehran regime for human rights violations are "even stronger" than an IRGC designation would be because they "name the crimes" committed by Iran, including its violent suppression of protests in the country that started in 2022.
