Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the West "needs" Iran Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Last week showed that increasing pressure on Iran could prove a double-edged sword for the EU, especially its southern members.

On Monday, EU foreign ministers announced they had approved a package of sanctions on Iran, including a full ban on Iranian oil exports, starting on July 1. The block imports 20 percent of Iran’s oil exports.

In a statement issued by the White House, US President Obama acclaimed “actions by our partners in the EU to impose additional sanctions on Iran in response to the regime’s continuing failure to fulfill its international obligations regarding its nuclear program.”

But last Thursday Iran replied that it could stop exports much earlier, thus undercutting the six-month buffer time designed to give EU countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain the opportunity to seek new oil contracts. The three countries, which are already facing financial strain, are the biggest importers of Iranian oil inside the EU.

“It is the West that needs Iran and the Iranian nation will not lose from the sanctions,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday in a speech broadcast on state radio.

As WBJ went to press, the Iranian parliament was scheduled to discuss whether to immediately stop oil sales to EU countries on Sunday.

Tension has been mounting between the US and Iran, and several experts warn that military confrontation between the two states is now a possibility. Some take the fact that French and UK warships accompanied a US aircraft carrier to the Gulf on January 22, despite Iranian warnings, as an indication that key US allies in Europe could also be dragged into a potential conflict.

Following the adoption of EU sanctions against Iran, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, UK Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy wrote in a joint statement, “We have no quarrel with the Iranian people. But … we will not accept Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.”

Poland, which imports most of its oil from Russia, has so far kept a low profile on the issue.

In mid-January Roman Kuźniar, an advisor to President Bronisław Komorowski, told Polska The Times that Poland would not be actively involved in the “unlikely” event of a conflict in Iran, and that sending Polish troops to Iran was out of the question.