Europe must engage on the Iran issue, but not be misled by false alternatives

Europe stayed out of the recent confrontation between the United States and Iran. Yet the European Union remains a major stakeholder, for a simple and important reason: energy. Europe depends significantly on oil and gas produced in, or transported through, the Gulf region, writes Martin Patzelt.

For Brussels, therefore, Iran is not a distant issue. It is a strategic concern. Beyond energy, there are also political and moral imperatives. The European Union is built on the principles of democracy and human rights—values that are in direct contradiction with the conduct of Iran’s ruling theocracy.

Given the regime’s destructive regional role and its systematic repression at home, alongside the clearly volatile state of Iranian society, exploring viable democratic alternatives is both geopolitically prudent and morally necessary.

In this context, the question of the Iranian opposition inevitably arises. Among the names frequently promoted in recent months, one stands out: Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last monarch. A significant media and social media campaign has sought to portray him as a unifying figure. Yet a closer examination suggests the opposite.

Rather than fostering unity, Reza Pahlavi has increasingly come to be a source of division and discord within the Iranian opposition. Any serious and constructive discussion about a democratic future for Iran must confront this reality.

This became particularly evident during a recent meeting at the European Parliament on April 15, where various Iranian opposition groups, including Kurdish representatives, gathered to discuss the future of Iran. The exchanges made clear that Pahlavi’s positions—his association with his father’s authoritarian legacy, his support for foreign military action against Iran, and his rhetoric regarding the need to suppress ethnic minorities—have made him a deeply polarizing figure.

Notably, despite being invited, he declined to participate. Apparently, he refused to sit alongside Kurdish representatives and instead sought a platform exclusively for himself. Such conduct raises serious questions about his commitment to pluralism, power-sharing, and democratic dialogue.

His recent visit to Sweden further reinforced these concerns. In both a televised interview and a press conference, Pahlavi openly defended his father’s record. When asked whether he condemned the Shah’s well-documented and flagrant human rights abuses, the conduct of the notorious secret police SAVAK, and the systematic killing and torture of dissidents and intellectuals, he dismissed the question entirely, stating that he was “proud” of his heritage and did not wish to focus on events from “50 years ago.” He even claimed that a new generation of Iranians admires his father’s legacy.

Such remarks are not merely tone-deaf; they undermine his credibility as a democratic figure. Any genuine commitment to democracy requires a clear reckoning with past abuses, not their dismissal or, worse, their glorification.

These concerns have not gone unnoticed in Europe. In Sweden, more than one hundred public figures and intellectuals publicly opposed his visit, while several leading newspapers expressed similar reservations. During a recent trip to Italy, he faced similar rebuke. Former Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi, and current Chairman of the Senate European Affairs Committee, issued a stark warning, noting Pahlavi’s own statements about cooperating with elements of Iran’s security apparatus, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an entity designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union.

The broader issue is not about personalities, but about principles. The Iranian people have made their aspirations unmistakably clear. In successive nationwide uprisings, including most recently in January 2026, protesters have chanted: “Death to the oppressor, whether Shah or Supreme Leader.” This slogan reflects a rejection of all forms of dictatorship—monarchical or theocratic—and a demand for a genuinely democratic republic.

Europe must listen carefully to that message.

At the same time, Europe cannot remain passive. The regime’s escalating campaign of political executions, including the recent execution of members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), whom it views as its principal adversary, as well as activists who took part in the January uprising, demands a firm and vocal response. Silence in the face of such repression would contradict the very values the European Union seeks to uphold.

We Europeans, and especially we Germans—and here I am thinking particularly of my experiences with colleagues and the mainstream in the German Bundestag—have for too long turned a blind eye to the hardship and suffering that the Iranian people have endured over the past decades under the mullah regime and the IRGC. Diplomatic calm and stability with the murderers and executioners were more important to us than the misery of the people there.

Was it economic interests? Was it fear of the regime and its power? I do not know. But I am convinced that our lack of interest and hesitation contributed to the devastating military intervention, under which the Iranian people are once again suffering; to the intense arming of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Yemeni extremists, and Iran itself in recent years; and to the malign activities of the Iranian intelligence services.

Resolute and strategically coordinated action using all our means—diplomatic, economic, and other non-military forms of external engagement—could have encouraged the people in Iran and supported their self-organization. Now we are seeing the consequences of our inaction, which have increasingly become a danger for us as well.

Therefore, Europe, and Germany in particular, must learn from this devastating situation and, from now on, mobilize all efforts toward regime change in Iran. We must no longer allow ourselves to be deceived or distracted by appeasement or by utopian alternatives such as a rebirth of the Shah’s regime.

The mullah regime has fully exposed itself, and we, the states of the democratic world, must no longer “wash our hands of innocence,” but instead offer our full support to democratic alternatives such as the Iranian National Council of Resistance.

The European Union should therefore pursue a clear and balanced approach. It must actively support democratic principles and human rights in Iran and should refrain from endorsing any single figure as the face of Iran’s future, particularly one whose record and rhetoric risk deepening divisions among Iranians themselves, most notably Reza Pahlavi.

Iran’s future will not be decided in European capitals, nor by nostalgic appeals to a discredited past. It will be shaped by the Iranian people and their demand for freedom, pluralism, and democracy.

Europe’s role is not to choose their leaders, but to stand firmly on the side of those principles and to avoid being misled by false alternatives.

Martin Patzelt was a member of the German Bundestag’s Human Rights Committee for two terms, where he also served, among other roles, as rapporteur on Iran.

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