Iran's lead negotiators travelled to Doha on Sunday as mediators pushed to finalise what could become the most significant Middle East peace agreement in a decade. Tehran's parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and foreign minister Abbas Araghchi met with Qatari and Omani mediators in a session aimed at extending a fragile ceasefire by 60 days and nailing down the terms for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Oil markets moved immediately. Brent crude fell 5.5 per cent on Sunday to $91.28 a barrel — significant relief from the levels that have squeezed European industry for months. US President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that negotiations were "proceeding nicely" and that he wanted "a great and meaningful" deal.
Europe is not a party to these talks. The negotiations are running through Omani and Qatari mediation, with Washington and Tehran as the principals. But EU High Representative Kaja Kallas has made the EU's position clear: any agreement must be built more rigorously than its predecessor.
"There must be nuclear experts around the table," Kallas said. "Otherwise we will end up with an agreement that is weaker than the JCPOA was." She added that the deal would also need to address Iran's ballistic missile programme, its support for armed proxies across the region, and what she described as Iran's "hybrid and cyber activities in Europe."
The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — which Iran formally exited in October 2025 after the E3 triggered snapback sanctions following the outbreak of the Twelve-Day War — remains the reference point for EU negotiators. The concern in Brussels is that a bilateral US-Iran deal focused primarily on the Hormuz reopening could end up far more limited in scope.
The UK, France and Germany — the E3 that co-managed the original JCPOA — have maintained a coordinated position: Iran must end its nuclear programme, halt its ballistic missile development, and stop its destabilising regional activities. That position has not shifted despite the political urgency coming from Washington.
The EU Council reinforced that posture last Thursday. On 22 May, it expanded the EU's Iran sanctions framework to cover individuals and entities involved in threatening freedom of navigation in the Middle East — specifically including the Hormuz closure. The decision enables travel bans and asset freezes on those responsible for the shipping blockade. The EU extended sanctions even as negotiations accelerated — a deliberate signal that European leverage is not being traded away in advance.
A deal that reopens Hormuz would deliver real economic relief to Europe. Energy costs have surged since February; the European Commission created an entirely new state aid framework in April to help cushion the blow for farmers, haulers and heavy industry. A sustained drop in oil and gas prices would ease that pressure significantly. But the EU's demand for a stronger verification regime than the original JCPOA reflects a deeper concern: that a deal struck quickly between Washington and Tehran — without European security requirements built in — could leave the continent more exposed to a rearmed and emboldened Iran. Europe has a lot riding on what gets written into the fine print.
