A provisional list of opposition figures to be invited to the EU Parliament includes the son of the last Shah, who is endorsed by some MEPs from the right-wing ECR group.
Reza Pahlavi, son of the last Iranian Shah and one of the main leaders of the opposition to the Tehran regime, could soon address the members of the European Parliament.
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His name is included on a provisional list that the Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs has drawn up to organise an exchange of views on the current situation in the country.
The list, obtained by Euronews, is provisional, and is set to be confirmed on Wednesday afternoon.
It features seven people, among them lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi and leaders of other parties and organisations opposing the Islamic Republic of Iran, such as the 7 Aban Front, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, and the communist Tudeh Party. One seat is set to be left empty as a symbolic gesture to represent opposition leaders in Iran who cannot join the conversation.
Sources told Euronews that idea behind the list is to avoid singling out Pahlavi as the only opposition leader the Parliament considers worth talking to. In recent years, there has been interest within the Parliament to engage with Shas’s son, but also caution, with politicians in Brussels recognising that it is Iranians who should choose their new leaders, and not the European Union's job to endorse specific contenders.
Pahlavi is the eldest son of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, and first in the line of succession of his dynasty, toppled by the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
He is probably the most famous Iranian opposition figure in the world, and has good connections with the Trump administration. He wants to lead the country’s democratic transition, and is styling himself as the leader-in-waiting of a “free Iran” with a government founded on the separation of religion and state, grounded in the rule of law and free of ethnic and religious discrimination.
He is supported by parts of the Iranian diaspora and his portrait figured in the crowded rallies held in Brussels in recent months.
He already visited the Brussels Parliament in 2023, when he was hosted by two right-wing MEPs, Swedish Charlie Weimers and Czech Tomáš Zdechovský.
Several members from the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists group have recently called for him to be invited to a plenary session of the European Parliament, but the proposal was not supported by their fellow lawmakers.
The next plenary is scheduled for next week in Strasbourg, but the chance of Pahlavi making an appearance are low, sources from the Parliament told Euronews.