By Martin Patzelt, a former member of the German Bundestag. He was part of the German Parliament’s Human Rights Committee for two terms, where he also served, among other roles, as rapporteur on Iran.
Europe stayed out of the recent confrontation between the United States and Iran. Yet the European Union remains a major stakeholder, for a simple and important reason: energy. Europe depends significantly on oil and gas produced in, or transported through, the Gulf region.
For Brussels, therefore, Iran is not a distant issue. It is a strategic concern. Beyond energy, there are also political and moral imperatives. The European Union is built on the principles of democracy and human rights—values that are in direct contradiction with the conduct of Iran’s ruling theocracy.
Given the regime’s destructive regional role and its systematic repression at home, alongside the clearly volatile state of Iranian society, exploring viable democratic alternatives is both geopolitically prudent and morally necessary.
In this context, the question of the Iranian opposition inevitably arises. Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last monarch, has launched a significant media and social media campaign to portray himself as a unifying figure. Yet a closer examination suggests the opposite.
This became particularly evident during a recent meeting at the European Parliament on April 15, organized by the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee (AFET), in cooperation with the Delegation for Relations with Iran.
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In his opening remarks, the Chair emphasized that the committee’s political groups had agreed to organize such a discussion and had sought to ensure diversity among the invitees.
Even a cursory review suggests that several invitees are aligned with the same political current advocating a return to the Pahlavi monarchy. This casts serious doubt on the assertion that the meeting truly reflected the diversity of Iranian opposition voices.
As expected, those supportive of the Pahlavi dynasty did not focus on the central issue of a free and democratic Iran. Instead, they used the platform to promote Reza Pahlavi, repeating unsubstantiated claims, such as that the Iranian people have called upon him to lead their struggle.
These claims are largely based on manipulated narratives, including doctored video clips and slogans that were fabricated or amplified in misleading ways. Several studies by well-known cybersecurity researchers have established that social media accounts linked to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have been actively involved in this campaign.
But MEPs did not remain silent. Several of them raised critical questions that went largely unanswered. They expressed concerns about the use of the title “Crown Prince,” which implicitly contradicts the principle that Iran’s future political system should be determined by its people. They were also critical of Reza Pahlavi’s call for bombing Iran and said he is the candidate of the US and Israel and does not represent the Iranian people.
The exchanges made it clear that Pahlavi’s positions, i.e., his association with his father’s authoritarian legacy, his support for foreign military action against Iran, and his rhetoric regarding the need to suppress ethnic minorities, have made him a deeply polarizing figure. Reza Pahlavi and his associates’ repeated calls for further attacks on Iran also made it clear that, in many circles, he is viewed as a representative of those powers.
A number of MEPs pointed to the absence of key opposition voices and called for a more balanced and representative discussion.
On 16 April, Reza Pahlavi assembled a number of Iranians who were apparently Kurds in Italy to once again attack Kurdish groups as “traitors” and “separatists,” something that aroused the widespread rage of the Iranian Kurds.
His recent visit to Sweden further reinforced these concerns. In both a televised interview and a press conference, Pahlavi openly defended his father’s record. When asked whether he condemned the Shah’s well-documented and flagrant human rights abuses, the conduct of the notorious secret police SAVAK, and the systematic killing and torture of dissidents and intellectuals, he dismissed the question entirely, stating that he was “proud” of his heritage and did not wish to focus on events from “50 years ago.”
These concerns have not gone unnoticed in Europe. In Sweden, more than one hundred public figures and intellectuals publicly opposed his visit, while several leading newspapers expressed similar reservations. During a recent trip to Italy, he faced similar rebuke. Former Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi, and current Chairman of the Senate European Affairs Committee, issued a stark warning, noting Pahlavi’s own statements about cooperating with elements of Iran’s security apparatus, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an entity designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union.
The broader issue is not about personalities, but about principles. The Iranian people have made their aspirations unmistakably clear. In successive nationwide uprisings, including most recently in January 2026, protesters have chanted: “Death to the oppressor, whether Shah or Supreme Leader.” This slogan reflects a rejection of all forms of dictatorship—monarchical or theocratic—and a demand for a genuinely democratic republic.
Europe must listen carefully to that message.
At the same time, Europe cannot remain passive. The regime’s escalating campaign of political executions, including the recent execution of members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), whom it views as its principal adversary, as well as activists who took part in the January uprising, demands a firm and vocal response. Silence in the face of such repression would contradict the very values the European Union seeks to uphold.
We Europeans, and especially we Germans, and here I am thinking particularly of my experiences with colleagues and the mainstream in the German Bundestag, have for too long turned a blind eye to the hardship and suffering that the Iranian people have endured over the past decades under the mullah regime and the IRGC. Diplomatic calm and stability with the murderers and executioners were more important to us than the misery of the people there.
Was it economic interest? Was it fear of the regime and its power? I do not know. But I am convinced that our lack of interest and hesitation contributed to the devastating military intervention, under which the Iranian people are once again suffering; to the intense arming of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Yemeni extremists, and Iran itself in recent years; and to the malign activities of the Iranian intelligence services.
Resolute and strategically coordinated action using all our means, diplomatic, economic, and other non-military forms of external engagement, could have encouraged the people in Iran and supported their self-organization. Now we are seeing the consequences of our inaction, which have increasingly become a danger for us as well.
Therefore, Europe, and Germany in particular, must learn from this devastating situation and, from now on, mobilize all efforts toward regime change in Iran. We must no longer allow ourselves to be deceived or distracted by appeasement or false alternatives such as a rebirth of the Shah’s regime.
The mullah regime has fully exposed itself, and we, the states of the democratic world, must no longer “wash our hands of innocence,” but instead offer our full support to democratic alternatives such as the Iranian National Council of Resistance.
The European Union should therefore pursue a clear and balanced approach. It must actively support democratic principles and human rights in Iran and should refrain from endorsing one whose record and rhetoric risk deepening divisions among Iranians themselves, namely Reza Pahlavi.
Iran’s future will not be decided in European capitals, nor by nostalgic appeals to a discredited past. It will be shaped by the Iranian people and their demand for freedom, pluralism, and democracy.
Europe’s role is not to choose their leaders, but to stand firmly on the side of those principles and to avoid being misled by false alternatives.
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