Mr Griffin will be dealing with a wide variety of subjects in next week's part plenary session in Brussels. Perhaps nothing on the agenda is more important than the statement on Iran's nuclear programme following on from the European Union decision today to ban Iranian oil imports.

EU Foreign ministers have agreed that no Iranian crude will be imported into member states starting from July 1st. The measure is relatively futile as the market slack will soon be taken up by Iran's big customers outside of Europe and spot price purchasers in Asia and Africa.

China for instance imports more Iranian oil than the EU countries combined. However, together with moves against Iran's Central Bank these initiatives are aimed at literally sabotaging the economy of Iran in order to deliberately create civil unrest in the country.

The Obama administration has made it clear that any country dealing with Iran will face problems accessing the USA's financial system. Currently India for example pays Iran for its crude imports via a Turkish bank.

As well as these attempts to blackmail and bully sovereign states, these underhand and undemocratic measures against Iran, if continued, will eventually lead to a rise in crude oil prices so threatening the recovery of the global economy.