A six-phase “road map” prepared by the EU’s foreign service advocates a “staged approach” to lifting sanctions on the country “to incentivise peaceful transition and reconstruction”. An arms embargo, sanctions on equipment used for internal repression and measures targeting Assad regime officials would be exempt, the document states.

The European Union may soon suspend sanctions on Syria related to energy and transport but has yet to agree on whether to ease restrictions on financial transactions, according to three diplomats and a document seen by Reuters.

Under Assad, Syria became one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world. After Assad, the EU wants to inject fresh dynamism. View on euronews