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Members of the Hamas Kassam Brigades
Photo: MOHAMMED ABED / AFP
Hamas remains on the EU list of terrorist organizations.
The corresponding decision of the EU Council of March 2018 was lawful, ruled the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
Punitive measures by the European Union against the radical Islamic organization are therefore compatible with EU law.
The ECJ overturned a contrary ruling by the first instance court of the European Union (ECJ), which is also based in Luxembourg.
(Az: C-833/19 P)
The council first classified Hamas as terrorist in 2001.
She was therefore included on the EU terrorist list and her accounts in the EU were frozen.
This has been extended several times since then, most recently in 2018. The CFI declared this decision ineffective in 2019 because the reasoning had not been properly signed.
The ECJ overturned this judgment.
The Council decided the basic decision and its justification at the same time as other decisions on the terror list.
The President and Secretary General of the Council would then have signed this in the package.
This is sufficient if the reasons are then properly published.
Legal error by the EU court
According to the ECJ ruling, the EU General Court erred in law by wrongly assuming that the legal acts concerned should have been signed by the President and Secretary General of the Council of the European Union.
The decisions of the EU states are »a bundle of individual decisions against people and organizations«.
These do not have to be signed, just announced.
The organization regularly fails before the courts of the European Union with lawsuits against the classification as a terrorist group.
She forcibly seized power in the Gaza Strip in 2007 after her 2006 election victory was not recognized.
The militant Palestinian organization has declared the destruction of Israel as its goal.
as / dpa / AFP