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On target? EU sanctions as security policy tools

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Amid lingering questions over their utility in restraining the proscribed actions of the Assad regime in Syria, curbing Iran’s nuclear programme or softening Russia’s aggressive stance on Ukraine, the EU stands to benefit from a balanced, empirically-informed assessment on how sanctions have been implemented, monitored and enforced. This report, the outcome of an EUISS Task Force on sanctions, offers valuable insight into a practice that is now part and parcel of the Union's ‘security’ policy toolbox. It aims to shed more light on an EU policy area that is still under-researched at a time when sanctions are becoming more important in terms of their number, scale and political salience.