Brussels, 23/07/2012 (Agence Europe) - With its ruling delivered on Thursday 19 July in case C-130/10, the Court of Justice rejected the action by the European Parliament (EP) challenging the legal basis and calling for annulment of Regulation 1286/2009 which adds the freezing of funds to the restrictive measures against persons and entities linked to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban provided for in Regulation 881/2002 (see EUROPE 10654). The ruling upholds the opinion of Advocate General Yves Bot: the regulation does, indeed, come under the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and not, as the EP had argued, the area of freedom justice and security. According to the EP, after the Lisbon Treaty came in to force, the legal basis chosen should not have been Article 215 (2) of the TFEU but the provisions on the prevention of terrorism and related activities which fall within the area of freedom justice and security (Article 75 of the TFEU). This latter procedure would put the EP on the same footing as the Council. The Court rejected this argument, indicating, like Advocate General Bot, that “in so far as Articles 75 TFEU and 215 TFEU relate to different European Union policies that pursue objectives which, although complementary, do not have the same scope, it would not seem possible to regard Article 75 TFEU as a more specific legal basis than Article 215(2) TFEU”. With regard to the lack of a decision under the CFSP and the question of whether the contested regulation could be adopted on the basis of Common Position 2002/402, which served as the basis for Regulation No 881/2002, the Court said that “the fact that the EU Treaty no longer provides for common positions but for decisions in matters relating to the CFSP does not have the effect of rendering non-existent those common positions adopted under the EU Treaty before the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force”. If they have not been repealed, annulled or amended after the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force, common positions “may be considered to correspond, for the purpose of implementing Article 215 TFEU, to the decisions adopted in accordance with Chapter 2 of Title V of the EU Treaty to which that article refers”. (FG/transl.rt)