04/04/2003 (Agence Europe) - Spain is going to request that the Basque nationalist party Batasuna is added to the European list of terrorist organisation, according to an announcement by the Spanish Minister of Justice José Maria Michavila. Mr Michavila had not wished to indicate whether his country was going to make this request at the Informal Council of Veria, last Saturday, following the banning of ETA's political wing by the Spanish Supreme Court (see EUROPE 1 April p 13). Up to now, despite Spain's repeated requests, particularly during its presidency of the EU during the first half of 2002, the other Member States have refused to allow this decision on designating a party as a terrorist group to be taken at a European level, although the group is allowed in Spain, where it has MPs. According to rules decided on at the end of 2002 during the adoption of the list of terrorist organisations, the freezing of assets only concerns organisations outside the EU and not European terrorist groups. Therefore, even if Batasuna is added to the list, this will not necessarily mean the freezing of its assets in the EU (see EUROPE 4 January 2002).