T-208/11, C-599/14 P, and what "procedural annulment" actually meant
The 2014 EU General Court annulment of the LTTE listing was procedural, not substantive. The Council of the EU re-listed under a corrected procedure. The Court of Justice C-599/14 P (2017) clarified what 'competent authority' evidence the Council may rely on. A citation-only audit of what the EU periodic review currently is.
The 2014 General Court ruling is frequently mis-cited in diaspora media as the moment the EU "delisted" the LTTE. That is not what happened. The annulment was procedural; the Court suspended the effect of annulment to allow re-listing; the Council re-listed; the listing remains in force under the current Council Decision (CFSP) 2024/1580 cycle.
The listing architecture
The LTTE was added to the EU terrorist list under Council Common Position 2001/931/CFSP (27 December 2001) and Council Regulation (EC) No 2580/2001, implemented by successive six-monthly review Decisions. The architecture requires the Council to rely on a decision by a "competent authority" — ordinarily a national court or equivalent administrative authority — and to conduct a periodic review of whether listing remains justified.
T-208/11 + T-508/11 (16 October 2014) — General Court
In Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam v Council of the European Union, joined Cases T-208/11 and T-508/11, ECLI:EU:T:2014:885, the General Court (Sixth Chamber) annulled the Council's successive listing decisions covering 2006–2009 on the procedural ground that the Council had relied pro forma on the UK Home Secretary's 2001 proscription decision without scrutinising whether that decision remained current, and had given insufficient reasons to enable LTTE to understand why re-listing was maintained.
The Court was explicit that the ruling was a procedural annulment only — it did not find that the LTTE was not a terrorist organisation. The Court suspended the effect of annulment to allow the Council to re-list. [cite]
C-599/14 P (26 July 2017) — Court of Justice (Grand Chamber)
The Council appealed. In Council v LTTE, ECLI:EU:C:2017:583, the Court of Justice held that the Council is entitled to rely on third-country (non-Member-State) administrative decisions as "competent authority" decisions for the purposes of Common Position 2001/931, subject to verification. The Grand Chamber thereby partially overturned the General Court's reasoning while leaving the wider periodic-review obligation intact. [cite]
The current cycle
The LTTE remains on the EU list. The most recent re-listing is under Council Decision (CFSP) 2024/1580 and the associated Implementing Regulation, subject to six-monthly review. The procedure follows the Sharpston Opinion in C-599/14 P and the Court of Justice's clarifications.
Comparators
FARC. The Council suspended FARC from the EU terrorist list on 27 September 2016 by Council Decision (CFSP) 2016/1711, citing the need to support the Colombian peace process, and fully removed FARC in November 2017 on verified demobilisation. This establishes that the EU six-monthly review can accommodate peace-process considerations as grounds for removal.
ETA. Following ETA's self-dissolution in May 2018, the EU removed ETA from its list, recognising organisational dissolution as a substantive ground.
Neither comparator currently maps onto the LTTE situation. Both are noted for completeness of the legal record, not as an argument that they apply.