Brussels, 19/01/2007 (Agence Europe) - The EU intends to update its list of terrorist organisations and entities in February and to reveal how the names come to feature on the list, in line with the European Court of Justice's judgment delivered in December.
Some fifty groups and almost the same number of individuals feature on the European list, that was created in 2001. Among these are the Basque separatist group ETA, Hamas of Palestine, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka. However, only 30 groups and 35 individuals, whose bank accounts and assets have been frozen, are directly involved in the decision delivered on 12 December (see EUROPE 9326). In its judgment, the Court of First Instance said that any decision on the freezing of the funds of an organisation considered to be a terrorist organisation had to be justified, and that the procedure setting up the EU list of terrorist organisations had to respect the right to defence. In practice, the Court annulled a 2002 decision, including the People's Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI), whose assets have been frozen, on the list of terrorist organisations.
The EU did not wait long to implement this new caselaw. On 28 December, nine radical Islamists (4 Dutch, 4 Moroccans and 1 Spaniard), two Kurdish groups - the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) and a Dutch group inspired by the Al-Qaida movement (Hofstad) - were added to the EU terrorist list. This was the first time since 2001 that the Council had put into practice the Court's caselaw, by sending justification to those concerned. All the groups and individuals on the European list and subject to a freezing of funds should be treated equally when the new list is drawn up in February. For security reasons, the statement of why the individuals, groups or entities concerned were included on the list will not be made public. Those concerned can, however, request the Council provide the statement. They can also request that the decision to include them on the list be re-examined. They can, finally, challenge the decision in the Court of First Instance.
By publishing its new list so soon, the EU hopes to move quickly to cut short the criticism and avoid a cascade of complaints which would require it to remove some groups from the black list. Indeed, on 18 January the European Court of Justice dealt another blow to the EU's list of terrorist groups, by declaring the appeal by the Kurdish PKK party against its inclusion on the list admissible (see EUROPE 9347). In addition to this case, three similar cases to that of the Iranian Mojahedin are also pending in the Court. One concerns the pro-Palestinian charity organisation Stichting Al Aqsa, based in the Netherlands; another a Kurdish separatist movement, Kongra-Gel; and the third comes from the leader of a Filipino armed group. (bc)