The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has dismissed the PKK's appeal against the Council of Europe's decision to keep the PKK on its “terrorist organization list”.

In its March 13 ruling, the Court said that the Council of Europe's continued listing of the PKK was lawful and dismissed five main objections raised by lawyers representing the PKK.

The PKK had appealed the Council of Europe's decision, arguing that it contained legal errors, that the grounds used were outdated and that the measures taken were disproportionate. The court rejected the appeal, arguing there was sufficient evidence to keep the PKK on the list.

With this decision, the PKK will remain on the European Union's “list of terrorist organizations”.

This is the fifth time the Court of Justice has upheld the EU's decision on the list of terrorist organizations.

Background to the case

After the German state put the PKK onto its list of banned organizations on November 26, 1993, a new security concept was introduced around the world following the attack on the Twin Towers in the USA in 2001.

The European Union created its own list in December of the same year as part of the "combating terrorism" imposed by the USA. The PKK was thus included in the list in 2002.

Since 2014, the European Court of Justice has dealt with several cases concerning the PKK. A 2018 ruling by the Court canceled the lists between 2014 and 2017.

The court thus found the arguments for listing the PKK as "inadequate" and ruled that the group could not be included in the list.

The EU appealed against this decision. Immediately after, the UK asked in 2018 to keep the PKK on the list, and the PKK was automatically relisted on January 9, 2018, based on the same arguments. Thereupon, the Kurdish side filed a lawsuit against the new list on March 7 the same year.

The objection of the Council of Europe to the previous decision and the case files against the new lists were merged and the first hearing was held on March 31, 2022.

At the hearing on March 31, the Court of Justice criticized the Council of Europe and reacted to the "copy-paste" defence that included the same arguments despite the cancelation of the previous lists.

On November 30, the Court of Justice of the European Union announced its decision in the lawsuit brought by the PKK to be removed from the lists of "terrorist organizations" between 2014 and 2020. Although the court had ruled in a previous decision that the PKK could not be put onto the list, it did not revoke the list, which was automatically updated with the same arguments.

On December 14, 2022, the European Court of Justice dismissed the PKK's 2021 objection to be removed from the list of "terrorist organizations".