President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola announced that the European Union has formally designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, marking a significant escalation in the bloc’s response to Tehran’s crackdown on domestic protests and its broader regional activities.
The European Union has now officially designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of the Iranian regime as a terrorist organisation.
— Roberta Metsola (@EP_President) February 19, 2026
That means no safe haven for those responsible for heinous crimes against Iranian protesters. It means their funds in Europe will be frozen.…
“The European Union has now officially designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of the Iranian regime as a terrorist organisation,” Metsola said in a statement. She added that the move means “no safe haven for those responsible for heinous crimes against Iranian protesters,” that their funds in Europe “will be frozen,” and that Europeans are prohibited from making any funds available to them. “It is the right step and the right signal. It is not business as usual,” she said.
The decision follows a political agreement reached by the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council on Jan. 29 and was formalized by the Council of the European Union, which is responsible for adopting sanctions measures on behalf of the bloc’s member states. With the listing, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, is now subject to restrictive measures under the EU’s counterterrorism sanctions regime.
Those measures include the freezing of funds and other financial assets or economic resources held within EU member states, as well as a prohibition on EU individuals and companies from making funds or economic resources available to the group. The designation significantly tightens financial and legal constraints on the IRGC’s operations within Europe.
As a result of the decision, 13 individuals and 23 groups and entities are now subject to restrictive measures under the EU’s terrorist list. The listing places the IRGC within a framework established by Common Position 2001/931/CFSP, which created the EU’s autonomous sanctions regime targeting individuals and entities involved in terrorist acts.
The EU terrorist list is distinct from the bloc’s implementation of United Nations Security Council resolutions 1267 (1999), 1989 (2011) and 2253 (2015), which focus on sanctions against Al-Qaida and ISIL/Da’esh. In addition to those UN-based measures, the EU maintains its own autonomous sanctions tools that can target ISIL/Da’esh, Al-Qaida, and associated persons and entities, as well as those who support, facilitate or enable violent actions by Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The move against the IRGC comes amid sustained European criticism of Iran’s response to anti-government protests and follows months of debate within EU institutions over how to increase pressure on Tehran. By formally placing the IRGC on its terrorist list, the EU has signaled a tougher posture, pairing political condemnation with legally binding financial and operational restrictions across its 27 member states.
