Held, dismissing the appeal, (1) in the judgment under appeal, the General Court had correctly interpreted the term “competent authority”, within the meaning of article 1(4) of Common Position 2001/931/CFSP, as not being limited to the authorities of member states but being capable of including the authorities of third states. That being the case, the General Court was also right to rule that the Council had, before acting on the basis of a decision of an authority of a third state, to verify whether that decision was adopted in accordance with the rights of the defence and the right to effective judicial protection. The Council was, therefore, required to provide, in the statements of reasons, the particulars from which it might be concluded that it had ascertained that those rights had been respected. Further, there was no need for the Council to make its observations on the legal system of that third state in its pleadings before the Courts of the European Union. In the present case, the statements of reasons relating to the measures in issue merely stated that the Indian Government proscribed the LTTE and subsequently included them in the list of terrorist organisations. None of the measures in issue showed that the Council had verified whether the decision of the Indian authorities was adopted in accordance with the rights of the defence and the right to effective judicial protection. The statements of reasons for those Regulations did not, therefore, disclose whether the Council had fulfilled its verification obligation in that regard. Consequently, the General Court had correctly held that the measures in issue were vitiated by a failure to give sufficient reasons (judgment, paras 22, 24, 26, 31, 33, 34–39, operative part).

(2) The General Court, at least implicitly, considered that the UK decisions did not in themselves constitute a sufficient basis for maintaining the LTTE on the list in issue. In the context of a review pursuant to article 1(6) of Common Position 2001/931, the Council could maintain the person or entity concerned on the list if it concluded that there was an ongoing risk of that person or entity being involved in the terrorist activities which justified their initial listing. The retention of a person or entity on the list in issue was, therefore, an extension of the original listing. In the process of verifying whether the risk was ongoing, the subsequent fate of the national decision that served as the basis for the original entry had to be duly taken into consideration, in particular the repeal or withdrawal of that national decision as a result of new facts or material or any modification of the competent national authority’s assessment. However, the question that arose in the present case was whether the fact that the national decision that served as the basis for the original listing was still in force could, in itself, be considered sufficient for the purpose of maintaining the person or entity concerned on the list. If, in view of the passage of time and in the light of changes in the circumstances of the case, the mere fact that the national decision remained in force no longer supported the conclusion that there was an ongoing risk, the Council was obliged to base the retention of that person or entity on the list on an up-to-date assessment of the situation, and to take into account more recent facts which demonstrated that that risk still existed. In the present case, a significant period of time had elapsed between the adoption of the UK decisions which served as the basis for the original entry of the LTTE on the list in issue, the listing itself, and the adoption of the measures in issue. In addition, the LTTE had incurred a military defeat which significantly weakened that organisation. The Council was therefore obliged to base the retention of the LTTE on that list on more recent material demonstrating that there was still a risk that the LTTE were involved in terrorist activities. Consequently, the General Court did not err in law in considering, at least implicitly, that the UK decisions did not in themselves constitute a sufficient basis for the measures in issue (judgment, paras 50–55, operative part).