How times have changed. On 25 November, the European Union added three Syrian ministers from the Assad regime to its sanctions listings. A matter of days later, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was fleeing to Moscow as rebel forces neared Syria’s capital, Damascus – putting an end to the country’s 13-year civil war. With the former ruler in exile, it is now time for Western states to consider sanctions relief in Syria. They should resist the temptations of a cautious, ‘wait and see’ approach. The choices that the EU and the US make over the pace and shape of sanctions lifting will determine Syria’s future.

In 2011, Europe and America began imposing stringent sanctions on Syria in a bid to bring about a political transition and curb Assad’s ability to slaughter opponents. The measures they introduced were broad. They include: travel bans and asset freezes on individuals connected to the former Assad regime; restrictions on Damascus’s access to global financial channels; curbs on Syria’s imports from Western countries; and an embargo on Syrian oil exports.

Sanctions on Assad’s clique should never be lifted. (If anyone is ever in doubt about this, watching testimonies from former prisoners of Damascus’s Sednaya prison should settle the debate.) However, Western states should start considering relaxing sanctions on a number of sectors of the Syrian economy. Such a move would bring three immediate benefits: relief to Syrians, as these measures have long fuelled inflation and shortages of crucial staples, such as medicines; demonstrating that Western states lift sanctions once their goals are met; and creating room for Western countries to interact with Syria’s new leaders – thereby ensuring Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, China, or even Russia are not the only ones pushing through the door.

Transatlantic cooperation will be key for Syria sanctions relief endeavours. If the EU were to lift its sanctions without the US doing the same, it would make little difference on the ground in Syria. The EU and the US should therefore build on their successful collaboration on Russia-related sanctions and draw up a joint calendar of milestones for the new Syrian regime to meet. Among other items, this calendar should include holding free and fair elections and showing continuous respect for human rights. When Damascus achieves these milestones, Brussels and Washington should respect their side of the bargain and proceed with sanctions relief. Conversely, the EU and the US should also stress that a sanctions snapback (the fast reimposition of sanctions) is possible if Damascus does not meet these milestones.

Crucially, the process should be gradual. Europe and America should make goodwill gestures now in a bid to show that they are serious about lifting sanctions and that the new Syrian regime has everything to gain from engaging with Western countries. However, European and American policymakers should also manage expectations around the economic impact of sanctions relief: even if all measures were lifted right away, Western firms would not rush back to Syria. Failing to manage expectations would be a disaster: anaemic interest in investing in Syria would cause the country’s new rulers to wonder whether they should even bother aiming for the sanctions relief milestones.

In practice, the first goodwill step could be to cancel individual sanctions on Syria’s new rulers. Rebel leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani has long been under sanctions for his involvement with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, previously an al-Qaeda offshoot. Measures against him and his organisation should be the first to go. (This step would also render UN penalties on these individuals mostly moot, since UN member states comply with UN sanctions by issuing their own designations.) Lifting sanctions on Islamist terrorists is not an appealing prospect. However, it is the most pragmatic way to ensure Western leaders can engage with Syria’s new leaders and have a say in the country’s transition.

In parallel, Western states should immediately lift sanctions on Syria’s central bank and at least some of its financial institutions. This is a crucial move towards facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid and kick-starting reconstruction efforts. Until that move is completed, there is also little point in lifting other sectoral sanctions. Plugging the country back into global financial channels will be easier said than done, as Western banks will remain wary of engaging with Syrian counterparts. To tackle this issue, Western authorities should issue comfort letters spelling out that it is fine to do business again in Syria. Experience from the lifting of sanctions on Iran after the conclusion of the nuclear deal in 2015 suggests that these letters are unlikely to be enough, as financial institutions will still worry about a potential sanctions snapback. However, these documents will at least help to convince some first movers to take the plunge.  

After Syria is firmly linked back into Western financial channels (a process that could take months, if not years), Western countries should consider lifting controls on exports to Syria. In this area, European and American measures differ significantly. EU restrictions focus on curbing the export of goods that the Assad regime could have used for internal repression, such as surveillance equipment. These sanctions should remain in place, at least for now. By contrast, the US has a near-total ban on American exports to Syrian firms. Relief could start with measures that facilitate the export of US-made humanitarian goods, including medicines.

Lifting the Western embargo on Syrian oil imports would be a final step forward. This would be attractive to Damascus; in 2010, oil shipments supplied 25 per cent of Syria’s fiscal revenues. However, there is no need to rush into sanctions relief on the energy sector, for at least two reasons. Firstly, Western countries could issue narrow sanctions waivers for now to meet any urgent needs. Secondly, the destruction of war means restarting energy production will take time, money, and technology. This cannot happen overnight – but it gives the US and the EU some latitude to assess Damascus’s human rights credentials, including respect for women’s and religious minority rights as well as political plurality.

A ‘wait and see’ approach to lifting sanctions on Syria would only entrench the popular view in many parts of the world that Western countries use sanctions only to punish adversaries (or even advance their own economic interests).[1] Sanctions can work only if relief is a credible possibility once their goal is achieved. Syria’s sanctions lifting process thus represents an opportunity to show that Western countries impose sanctions in the hope of eventually lifting them. A good sanction is one that is either never imposed – because sanctions deterrence worked – or is eventually lifted – once the measure has succeeded. Syria now looks like a textbook case to apply this principle.

[1] Author’s interviews, online and in various capitals, 2021-24.