EU to rubber-stamp ‘undemocratic’ terror blacklist

Member states are expected to sign off on a controversial terrorist blacklist next week amid criticism that the procedure is undemocratic.

EU ambassadors from the member states are currently discussing which organisations and individuals should be on the list. Environment ministers are expected to approve the list as an ‘A-point’, without any discussion, on 28 June.

The list will then be published in the EU’s Official Journal and letters sent to the organisations and individuals informing them of their inclusion on the list, an EU official said.

It is the first time the Council of Ministers will have published a terrorist blacklist since new procedures were introduced earlier this year to make the system more transparent and democratic.

Following a ruling by the European Court of First Instance last December, the Council now writes to organisations and individuals which it considers should be on the list. Such groups are allowed to present reasons as to why they should not be on the list. The Council takes this into account and finally presents a list.

But some feel the new procedures do not go far enough, with a single member state often responsible for putting a group on the list based on partially secret information. Given the sensitive nature of terrorism, member states tend to support suggestions made by a fellow EU state.

"You’re having criminalisation being negotiated behind closed doors…it should be decided by national parliaments as it is an extremely blunt instrument," said Iain Cameron, a professor in international law at Uppsala University, Sweden.

Inclusion on the list means an organisation or individual’s assets are frozen and anyone provid-ing them with financial support can be prosecuted.

The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), an organisation which opposes the Iranian government and which has been on the list for the past five years, argues that the list is often politically motivated. "The EU is concerned with satisfying the Iranian government and is keeping the PMOI on the list as a result," said Mohammad Mohaddessin, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is the umbrella organisation for groups including the PMOI.

Mohaddessin said that he was not hopeful that the group would be taken off the list despite its attempts to show that the organisation has ceased all violent activity. He said the Council’s reasons for including them on the list are based on activity in 2001 and before.

December’s court ruling followed a PMOI challenge to the Council’s terrorist list. The group says it will again take the Council to court if it is kept on the list next week.

Member states are expected to sign off on a controversial terrorist blacklist next week amid criticism that the procedure is undemocratic.