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The EU - A "Strong Power" in the Fight against Terrorism?

Within Europe measures for combating terrorism are being discussed primarily at the national level. What role does the EU play in this threatening situation? Wilhelm Knelangen explains how the EU has progressed from playing a marginal role to become an important partner in the fight against terrorism.

In its "Laeken Declaration", the European Council, still coming to terms with the events of 11 September 2001, announced that in future Europe must assume the role of "a power resolutely doing battle against all violence, all terror and all fanaticism". Was this just the pompous rhetoric typical of such meetings or is the European Union indeed a strong "power" in the fight against terrorism? What tasks can the EU take on in this sensitive area of policy?

Biometric European Union passport
Photo: AP

National strategies and European signals

Over the past few years, not only the German government but also other EU Member States have responded to the threatening new situation after the New York and Washington attacks by intensifying the pressure on investigations and introducing tougher laws. In this context the EU's efforts to harmonise legislation and coordinate investigative operations have been at best tentative. This assessment seems hardly surprising initially. Both existing treaties and the political self-images of the Member States dictate that the responsibility for combating terrorism lies primarily in the hands of national governments and parliaments.

However, parallel to activities at a national level, just a few days after the attacks the EU Member States signalled a markedly European approach. The heads of state and government agreed on an ambitious "Action Plan for combating Terrorism" which since then has been revised and extended several times. The plan encompasses several fields of policy, with the focus on domestic policies and legislative measures. This is no mere coincidence. For both the EU and the Member States, terrorism is a threat the states hope to eliminate chiefly through the use of their police forces and security and intelligence agencies. These efforts are to be supplemented by foreign policy and development initiatives aimed at combating the roots of terrorist violence. Even though since the June 2002 European Council meeting in Seville, the use of military instruments has not been ruled out, within the context of the EU the battle against terrorism is essentially a civilian operation.

Initially, the Action Plan model was quite successful. In the winter of 2001-2002 agreements were quickly reached on several legislative instruments that had been under discussion in Council committees for years without concrete results. Among these was the establishing of Eurojust, a European Union body that provides mediation between the prosecutors of different Member States in cross-border investigations and criminal prosecutions. Then there was the European arrest warrant, described by the EU as a key element of its anti-terrorism strategy and aimed at facilitating extradition proceedings between the competent authorities of individual Member States. With its Framework Decision on Combating Terrorism, the European Council reached a consensus on a joint definition of terrorist offences in the penal law of all Member States, which until then only a few Member states had adopted. Another breakthrough was the Framework Decision on Joint Investigation Teams, aimed at creating the basis for setting up investigative teams made up of members from different nations for the investigation of criminal offences.

The clumsiness of the procedures

But despite these achievements, the inter-governmental character of EU cooperation on domestic and legislative policies continued to pose a structural hurdle to quick and decisive action. The different judicial systems and cultures, conflicting crime policy traditions, and the obligatory need for consensus mean that the Council's negotiations can sometimes go on for years. And because the legislative instruments can only come into effect once they have been adopted by the individual parliaments of the Member States under national law, there are further delays. Moreover, the regular exhortations of heads of state and government to national security and intelligence agencies to intensify their operational cooperation with each other highlight the fact that legislation is only one side of the coin - and probably not the decisive side at that. Despite the lessons of the past few years, sovereignty issues, competitive thinking and a lack of trust are still having a negative impact on the practicalities of the fight against terrorism.

This is particularly true as far as cooperation between security and intelligence agencies is concerned. Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt's proposal that steps to be taken towards the creation of a central European intelligence agency along the lines of the CIA failed to gain approval. Most Member States reject the idea of general multilateralism as far as intelligence is concerned. Although the European Council Secretariat's Situation Centre receives the support of terrorism experts from different national security and intelligence agencies, the exchange of intelligence data will continue to be a domain dominated by ad-hoc cooperation and bilateral relations - and the "hotter" the data, the more likely this is to be the case.

Prevention, protection, pursuit and response

In December 2005, the European Council adopted what it calls its "Counter-Terrorism Strategy" to complement the Action Plan, which has expanded to encompass over 150 measures. The central projects of this strategy were summarised into four main strands of work. In the area of "Prevention" measures are aimed at preventing people from turning to terrorism in the first place. The main emphasis is cracking down on the abuse of the Internet for terrorist purposes and fighting recruitment. The inclusion of biometric data in identification papers and the improvement of information systems are aimed at boosting "Protection" against attacks. In the cross-border "Pursuit" of terrorists, the main objective is to extend the capabilities of national authorities and promote the unrestricted use of Europol and Eurojust. Finally, the term "Response" covers measures aimed at enhancing cooperation in managing the consequences of terrorist attacks.

So is the EU a strong "power" in the fight against terrorism? Those expecting the creation of European control centres along the lines of the FBI and the CIA or the harmonisation of diverging judicial systems have misjudged the nature of the EU's counter-terrorism policies. These are aimed first and foremost at bolstering the efficiency of national authorities and facilitating cross-border cooperation.

This is why the national level remains the key level as far as strategic measures are concerned. Nonetheless, one can't ignore the fact that the EU has progressed from a peripheral position to become an important framework for cooperation in the fight against terrorism. It seems the Madrid and London attacks have undermined traditional reservations about closer cooperation. If the EU constitution does come into effect, the institutional framework will also be improved. For the first time the Council would be able to make decisions with a qualified majority - and with the participation of the European Parliament, which so far has been largely excluded from such matters.

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