The recent Madrid terrorist attacks have catapulted the EU into further action in considering a new package of anti-terrorist measures.
The key challenge is to establish a way of reinforcing existing collaboration in intelligence-sharing and police investigations without creating new bureaucracy that would be too cumbersome against a highly mobile and adaptive terrorist threat in Europe.
The efficacy of these new anti-terrorist proposals must be evaluated against the problems latent in the pan-European action plan adopted by the European Council on 21 September, 2001.
These problems include the European Common Arrest Warrant, as Germany, Italy, Greece, Austria and the Netherlands have not yet enacted its enforceable provisions.
They also include the EU-wide definition of terrorism, as three states have yet to implement it and adjust their national laws in laying down minimum sentences for terrorist crimes; and 11 states have still to enact laws enabling cross-border communication intercepts and monitoring of bank accounts.
The EU intelligence agency Europol has done little to address these dilemmas. A coherent anti-terror policy is beyond its remit and it lacks the adequate resources with only 350 staff members and an annual budget of 52m euros ($64m).
Europol has failed to transcend the traditional obstacles to intelligence sharing; the 34 law enforcement agencies are still reluctant to share "high grade", real-time intelligence on terrorism that can be acted upon immediately.
Promise and pitfalls
The new anti-terrorism proposals under consideration are designed to remedy the deficiencies in the nature and quality of intelligence and information sharing among the EU member states.
But while these proposals promise improvements, they are also laden with potential pitfalls.
The appointment would involve an experienced central figure with direct access to Javier Solana and parallel interlocutors inside and outside the EU. It would also create a common European platform with wide remit to address critical issues in the fight against terror, ranging from foreign policy and border control to money laundering.
This post would bolster current levels of co-ordination between EU security services and promote synergy in counter-terrorism policy-making.
But problems for the czar are the pitfalls inherent in classified information sharing at the pan-European levels and beyond. Some EU states have a greater intelligence capacity (with non-EU sources) that they would be reluctant to compromise.
The prioritised areas of information exchange include: identifying terrorists' "sleeping cells", recruitment methods, financial bases and external connections.
Analysing and procuring information on these areas is critical; however the methodology for information exchange could prove problematic, relegating the clearing house to function as merely another platform for European bureaucratic networking.
The primary purpose is to streamline existing databases into real-time instruments on terrorist organisations and assets. The most interesting component of this proposal is to foster partnerships with the public and banking sectors; attempting to overcome institutional banking secrecy in some states; and developing an efficient system to follow financial transactions.
Some financial sectors, such as credit card companies, will continue to be reluctant to divulge fraud as it could undermine business confidence.
Another controversial aspect is the proposed introduction of obligatory storing of all telephone and communication data within the EU for specific periods.
This would be limited to "trafficking" rather than content. However, many states will be reluctant and extremely unwilling to relinquish confidentiality and privacy enshrined in the EU data protection legislation.
These new proposals would seek to enhance monitoring of transactions in real-time. Most of these measures assume that terrorists only use banking facilities in the movement of funds. Greater attention needs to be focused on detecting informal financial relationships and the nexus between terrorism and criminal enterprise.
False passports and IDs are also used to engage in credit card and bank fraud in certain EU states with less stringent identification procedures.
The UK is among the weakest links in this respect within the EU. A future model could be based on Italy's system of checking IDs online, creating a partnership with the public who can check these to detect and report stolen documents.
More significantly, this proposal seeks to identify the trafficking of radiological material using all available technology and surveillance instruments.
The EU has extremely varied levels of preparedness in this respect and will struggle to harmonise its emergency planning and coordination in response to an act of "catastrophic" terrorism involving chemical, biological and radiological attack. This can be seen by the absence of a coherent transport security plan within or between states.
In conclusion, many of these proposals are on paper valuable assets in the fight against terrorism from a European perspective.
It remains to be seen whether these proposals will generate traction among all states to remedy the EU's institutional shortcoming in translating counterterrorism policies and new initiatives into action on the ground.
Success against terrorism in Europe demands this.
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