Brussels, 15/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - A further meeting is to be held "before the end of the month" to review the European list of terrorist organisations, the Spanish Presidency has announced. This new discussion on the list will mainly concern the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), that Spain wishes to have included on the list. Spanish Prime Minister José Maria Aznar publicly called on the Fifteen, on Monday, to add this guerrilla group to the EU's black list. EU High Representative for CFSP Javier Solana had declared a few days earlier, in Madrid, that he expected the FARC would be added to the list very soon. Colombian President Andres Pastrana hopes this will be so. There was no agreement between the Fifteen on FARC during the first review of the list, on 29 April, although another Colombian group, the United Self Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) had been added at that meeting. In circles close to the Presidency, Sweden is blamed for the failure to reach agreement. Swedish sources recognise that Sweden does have reticence, but denies being the cause of blocking.
The European Parliament also took a stance in favour of the EU designating the FARC as a terrorist group, but without citing it by name. In a resolution (to which we shall return) on the EU/Latin American Summit of Madrid, approved on Wednesday, the EP "calls on the Council to complete the list of terrorist organisations by adding all the groups and organisations that practice assassination, kidnapping, blackmail, extortion and any other kind of terrorist activity". The EP adopted an amendment along these lines by the EPP-ED and PES. During the debate, Spanish national Jose Salafranca (Partido popular) supported the inclusion of FARC on the terrorist list, while Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group Monica Frassoni felt this would complicate the situation of hostages being held in Colombia.