BRUSSELS (EJP)---A German expert on Iran said that some of Europe’s largest companies are continuing to do ‘business as usual’ with Tehran while the international community is preparing further sanctions against Iran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.

During a seminar at the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday, Matthias Küntzel insisted that only economic pressure from outside will have an effect on Iran.

“It is time to act because there is no much time left before Iran gets nuclear weaopons,” Küntzel, a political scientist and a publicist in Hamburg, said.

The EU, which decided earlier this week to keep up pressure on Tehran, is Iran’s main supplier of goods and makes up 44 percent of the country’s total imports.

“Stop providing credit”

Some two thirds of Iran’s industry relies on German engineering products and the German government is providing export credit guarantees to the companies doing business with Iran to cover the risks.

“If Germany and Europe decide to stop providing public credit for loans to companies working with Iran, this will have an effect,” Küntzel said.

He pointed to the so-called Nabucco project of a giant pipeline natural gas transport to run through Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria. Through the project, the EU expects to diversify its supply routes away from Russia.

The United States said Wednesday that foreign companies should think twice about striking deals with Iran, after a German company announced that it is in talks to buy liquid natural gas from Tehran.

“In this framework, Iran would become Europe’s new strategic partner in supplying natural gas,” Kuntzel declared.

British Conservative and Socialist Portuguese MEP’s Charles Tannnock and Paolo Casaca, who organized the meeting, both stressed the need to maintain pressure on the EU member states on the Iranian issue.