Brussels, 10/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - The EU's foreign ministers reached political agreement on Monday on freezing terrorists' assets. The agreement is complicated in terms of procedure (being made up of 2 common positions and a regulation) and a list of terrorist organisations still has to be added and endorsed before it becomes a formal decision. The EU aims to achieve this by the end of the year, when it will have a full common instrument for freezing terrorists and international terrorist organisations' assets, but not for "internal" terrorist groups only active within the EU, like ETA. The common positions covered all terrorist groups across the board, but the regulation provides a common basis for implementing the common positions for action under external policy (second pillar) and therefore only applies to international terrorism. Combating "internal" groups comes under Justice and Home Affairs (3rd pillar) and the regulation cannot apply here. No third pillar instrument (eg a framework decision) has yet been added to the decision for internal terrorist groups. For the moment, this means that freezing "internal" terrorists' assets will come under the legislation of the Member States with an expert pointing out that 3 or 4 of them do not have the necessary legal instruments for this. The Spanish foreign minister, Josep Piqué, signalled that during the Spanish Presidency, the EU's justice and foreign ministers would launch discussions to define a common mechanism.
The first common position on combating terrorism is general, covering the whole package. It aims to implement United Nations' Resolution 1373 on terrorism and stipulates that Member States must freeze the assets of terrorist groups and organisations. It also covers sharing of information, the obligation to put people connected with terrorism on trial, assistance and co-operation at the highest level in combating terrorism and signing up to international anti-terrorism conventions. With the second common position, the EU intends going further than the United Nations resolution by establishing its own anti-terrorism instrument. It concerns the freezing of assets and police and legal co-operation and will form the basis of the EU's list of terrorist organsations. It fleshes out the definition of terrorism (adopted last week by the JHA Council) and the criteria used by the EU to add individiuals and groups to the EU list (launching investigations or enquiries for terrorist acts or attempting to commit or participating in or facilitating a terrorism act or condemntation for such acts). The list might can include both "internal" and international organisations and will be reviewed at least once every six months. The text will take effect as soon as it is adopted. The regulation aims to provide a common application for the second common position on the freezing of international terrorist organisations' assets and sets out in detail all the sources of funding it covers (insurance, bank accounts, etc). It also lays down various rules - financial institutions have to provide information, the option of releasing money for humanitarian purposes or for tax and other bills, etc. The regulation will come into force when it is published in the Official Journal.