Lifting the sanctions gives more certainty to European firms contemplating investments in one of the least developed markets in Asia...The EU's move could put pressure on the United States, which suspended sanctions in May last year and allowed U.S. companies to invest through a general licence...The EU lifted its sanctions a year after suspending them in response to a dramatic series of reforms put in place...But Human Rights Watch accused authorities in Myanmar's western Rakhine State of crimes against humanity in the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims last year, charges the government dismissed as one-sided and "unacceptable''...British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the progress made was sufficient to justify lifting the sanctions despite the violence.