On Tuesday, 25 June 2019, CEDS (Centre for European Democratic Studies) organized an international conference in Berlin titled “Europe’s role in relieving

tensions in the Middle East: Influences of state actors in Europe”. 

Led by Volker Beck, former member of the Bundestag, the conference focused on an analysis of the regional geopolitical problems. The witnessed growing geopolitical tensions in the Gulf region, particularly accentuated by one of the major regional destabilisers, Iran. 

Felipe Pathé Duarte, Professor at the Institute of Political Sciences and Internal Security and Senior Analyst at VisionWare, stressed that Iran acts below the line of conventional warfare, using a blend of military and paramilitary tools, including proxy forces, short/medium range missiles, cyber tools, and narrative led operations to shape and coerce regional actors to its advantage. 

Markus Sheff, CEO of IMPACT-se focused on education, and in particular textbooks, as a tool to shape young minds and feed into Iran’s imperial dreams and its negative views on western values. 

Several German Parliamentarians said that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has become a tool to export “extremist Iranian ideology” and to spread terrorism in the world by supporting extremist militias with weapons, money and people, such as Hezbollah’s terrorist organization, sectarian militias in Iraq and Huthis in Yemen.

MEP Indrek Tarand sent a video message focusing on the importance of the subject today not only for the EU but also for the world.timesofgeneva.com