Former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt and former Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi said they support regime change in Iran, endorsing the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a coalition of Iranian dissident groups.
Both former ex-PMs stated this at a conference at the European Parliament featuring European lawmakers from different political groups. A number of other public figures, together with Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the National Council of the Resistance of Iran, also attended.
The conference was held in light of the international Human Rights Day, annually held on December 10. It targeted “the systematic repression of people in Iran” and condemned the support for terrorism internationally by the current regime of the Middle East country.
In front of a large audience of Iranians at the EP, Rajavi gave a keynote speech in which she said that in the past six months, “both Iranian society and the ruling regime are moving, with unprecedented speed, toward a new reality”.
“[Supreme Leader of Iran Ali] Khamenei has, in effect, lost the so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’ he manufactured — his strategy of warmongering, exporting extremism and sponsoring terrorism, which he had turned into the regime’s shield for survival,” she added.
She added: “Khamenei’s criminal regime has executed more than 1,950 people,” double that of 2024 and the highest number in the past 37 years.
“This marks a new and unprecedented record for nearly four decades by a regime that already holds the grim distinction of carrying out the most executions per capita in the world.”
Rajavi also mentioned 18 political prisoners of her own group facing death sentences.
She called on the European Union and its member states to end their silence and designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) a terrorist organisation.
“The European Parliament has repeatedly called for this designation in its resolutions. National parliaments, including those of Sweden, the Netherlands and Belgium, have also voted in favour of this necessity. The European Union must not hesitate any further in doing the same,” she said.
Rajavi added the EP should take the initiative in referring human rights violations in Iran to the United Nations Security Council.
At the event, there were several high-ranking European politicians, including Verhofstadt and Renzi, who both issued their support for this and for Rajavi.
Verhofstadt said he wanted the next meeting of NCRI to be in Teheran, which would require the overthrow of the current regime and a power-transfer to Rajavi.
He stated appeasement had failed and denounced almost 2,600 murders in Iran in just the past 16 months. He called on Europe to acknowledge Rajavi and the NCRI as the rightful representatives of the Iranian people.
Verhofstadt said Iran was part of a worldwide struggle between democracy and autocracy. He put the country in the same group as North Korea, China and Russia, which all relied on brutal power, while democracies adhered to human rights and international law.
He called for the European Commission, the Council of the EU, the External Action Services (EEAS) and heads of state in Europe to change their policies, because “the mullahs cannot be trusted”.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards should be labelled a terrorist organisation and hit with more sanctions, he said.
On Kyiv’s Maidan Square in 2014, Verhofstadt had famously announced sanctions and called for regime change in Ukraine. That was an intervention that many felt intensified the unrest and fuelled accusations of western meddling.
According to Renzi yesterday, the increase in executions and repression in Iran showed the weakness of the regime. He called for the EU to change its policies, because “it’s impossible to talk the regime into moderation”.
Christian Democrat MEP Rasa Juknevičienė also said that appeasement did not work, putting Iran also on the “axis of evil”, adding that the world had to act “before it’s too late”.
She also claimed that the US is moving away from supporting democracies and wants to make deals with dictatorships, adding that the EU was now possibly the only hub to help countries that were fighting dictatorship.
Conference at the European Parliament featuring European lawmakers and distinguished public figures#HumanRightsDay#StandUp4HumanRights pic.twitter.com/Us1zc3FT2e
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) December 10, 2025
