Finland is considering joining the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), a trading system that core EU members set up to bypass US sanctions on Iran, its government said Monday.
"Finland has expressed its support for INSTEX, a special tax channel established by France, Germany and the UK, and is assessing conditions for joining it," the statement read, according to Sputnik.
EU senior foreign policy official Helga Schmid said in June that the system was already being used to sell humanitarian goods to Iran, which had been pushing for it to keep oil trade flowing.
However, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations Majid Takht Ravanchi said the same month that the mechanism was like a "beautiful car without fuel".
The United States last year reimposed sanctions on Iran’s financial and energy sectors, which were waived under the 2015 nuclear deal. EU nations proposed the trade channel in an attempt to stop Iran from pulling out too. However, the channel hasn't finalized any transaction so far.
Earlier in June, an Iranian parliamentary delegation visited Finland and urged the Scandinavian country's authorities to join the European financial channel.
Several other European and non-European countries such as Spain, Netherlands and Russia, have expressed their readiness to use the monetary avenue to resume their trade exchanges with Iran, cut following the US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal and the reimposition of unilateral extraterritorial sanctions on the country.