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31.10.2016 15:15
Five lessons learned from the terror attacks in France
One year has passed since the Paris attacks and January 2017 will mark two years since the Charlie Hebdo offices were attacked. Brussels, Burgas, Nice, Würzburg, Copenhagen, Ansbach and others are just further examples that showed our vulnerability. How have security resources across the EU and within Member States adapted to recognise and confront cross-border terrorist and security threats? Monika Hohlmeier MEP, the European Parliament's chief negotiator on the new EU terrorism law, explains to us what the EU is doing to keep us safe from more terror attacks.
It is abundantly clear by now that these attacks partly originate in omissions from the past. The freedoms that we are so proud of, namely the freedom to move or to travel back and forth in a European Union without borders, should have come along with security measures.
Is it normal that our national police forces have to ask the European Commission if they want to strengthen control near borders if the security situation requires it? Is it normal that we don’t know who is coming into or leaving the EU? Freedom can only prosper when security accompanies it, within and beyond our borders.
Freedom can only prosper when security accompanies it, within and beyond our borders
Parts of our population have the impression that we have lost control over our territory and start to believe in extremist, separatist or populist political movements. The question now is: what have we learned from all the attacks of the last two years that cost so many lives and bred insecurity and suspicion among our populations and Member States? Where are the gaps in our security and how do we tackle the deficiencies?
Improving police and intelligence cooperation between Member States, with the EU and beyond
We need strong cooperation between the different police forces, between police and intelligence services and between intelligence services, police forces and Europol.
The former unwillingness to cooperate and national vanity has led to severe security gaps: missing data on suspected persons or wanted criminals in the existing pan-EU databases, such as the Schengen Information System (SIS), allowed criminals to slip through the cracks. The political misunderstanding of the concept of data protection resulted in restrictions to data that allowed terrorists to be registered in the Eurodac system for migrants and refugees without being detected because of the lack of an automatic data comparison with SIS and the list of foreign fighters or dangerous persons.
National obstinacy and fans of freedom without security checks create a severe danger for our population. We must close this disastrous loophole in the European security structure while respecting fundamental rights on data protection.
The Paris attacks of November 2015 and their aftermath demonstrated that national obstinacy and fans of freedom without security checks create a severe danger for our population. We must close this disastrous loophole in the European security structure while respecting fundamental rights on data protection.
One of the contributors to the attacks, Saleh Abdeslam, was born in Brussels and returned to the city after participating in the strikes in Paris. He was finally captured in the Molenbeek district of the city and extradited to France in April 2016.
The saddening thing about Abdeslam’s case is the apparent ease with which Abdeslam succeeded in crossing the border into Belgium before and after the attack, which challenges the efficacy of cross-border cooperation to combat terrorism and the movement of terrorists within the European Union. He passed police controls. Abdeslam was the one who rented the car to pick up terrorists, taking advantage of the migration crisis in Budapest, and drove them to the Bataclan attack in which dozens of people were murdered. Furthermore, Abdeslam and his brother were well known by the Belgian police as radicals who had attempted to travel to Syria to fight for Islamic State (IS).
Such a triple failure in capturing a terrorist before an attack due to insufficient and delayed information-sharing and cooperation between Member States must not happen again
Such a triple failure in capturing a terrorist before an attack due to insufficient and delayed information-sharing and cooperation between Member States must not happen again. The Member States must file relevant data in both the SIS database and the list of dangerous persons, including foreign fighters, on a regular and complete basis so that police, in the case of a control, can arrest them.
There is already progress: the Paris attacks prompted Member States to rethink their approach to cooperation with each other and with EU agencies. For instance, France and Belgium began to collaborate through the 'Taskforce Fraternité', with Europol as the coordination centre for their collaboration. The intelligence information that these two countries provided led to 800 intelligence leads and more than 1600 leads on suspicious financial transactions.
Believe it or not, Member States still refuse to be obliged to share relevant information! On 13 November, only half of the Member States were active within Europol’s policing initiatives.
Europol finally signals that Member States are more willing to cooperate with it, recognising its indispensability in enabling the sharing of information. Believe it or not, Member States still refuse to be obliged to share relevant information! On 13 November, only half of the Member States were active within Europol’s policing initiatives, including its Focal Point Travellers programme. This programme was designed to store information about thousands of individuals suspected of travelling overseas to engage in terrorism, including Islamist “foreign fighters” in Syria and Iraq.
Combatting cross-border terrorism means strengthening European coordination - and especially acceptance of more coordination versus national solo runs. We need effective and well-trained national police and intelligence forces, but on the international front, they must rely on and help each other.
For years the EPP Group has consistently advocated for a more comprehensive approach to prevent fragmentation in security structures across the Union. Europol has become a real coordination hub as part of the European response to the rise of international organised crime and terrorism - and this with a very low level of financial and human resources. Europol adapted to emerging trends, such as the use of social media by terrorists to attract, train and recruit potential supporters.
In 2015, the Internet Referral Unit (IRU) was established within Europol to fight against terrorist propaganda and related violent extremist activities on the internet. It complements the European Cybercrime Center (EC3), which was already set up in 2013 to fight severe crime online.
Combatting cross-border terrorism means strengthening European coordination. We need effective and well-trained national police and intelligence forces, but on the international front, they must rely on and help each other.
A further direct consequence was the set-up of the European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC). It acts as a central European information hub to fight terrorism in the EU and to provide analysis for ongoing investigations and a coordinated reaction in case of attacks. It will enable the sharing of sensitive counter intelligence data through the Secure Information Exchange Network Application (SIENA) and the Europol Information System (EIS).
In May 2016, the Parliament and the Council voted in favour of boosting Europol’s powers to fight terrorism and to increase its accountability to national parliaments and the European Parliament, while formulating clear rules for data protection and data exchange. Now we need the adequate manpower and financial resources, because requests by the Member States have doubled within a few months.
Bridging the gap between the rights of national and European Frontex border guards
The Member States have to tackle the great deficiencies that became visible at the EU's external borders over the last months. One big step forward was made when a new mandate for Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, was decided at EU level. Frontex will not only be able to offer better support to Member States in need through an increase in staff and operational resources, they will also monitor the capacity of the Member States to guard the EU's external borders.
Frontex will not only be able to offer better support to Member States in need through an increase in staff and operational resources, they will also monitor the capacity of the Member States to guard the EU's external borders
Now Frontex needs access to information. Member States still refuse this access! So the Frontex expert has to ask the national border guard in the Member State in which Frontex is operating, or call home, to receive adequate information.
With safe external borders all EU citizens can profit from a safe Schengen Area without internal borders
The former controls at the Greek border were totally insufficient, further registrations in other States were not used for an automatic check against the relevant databases for the identification of criminals. So some of the Paris attackers entered the European Union through Greece, Serbia and Hungary by taking advantage of the migration crisis for their criminal and terrorist purposes. European citizens were stunned by those gaps in our security.
There is no logic behind guaranteeing access to databases only to national border guards and completely denying access to Frontex experts, when both are carrying out the same tasks - registering and controlling migrants and refugees at borders
At a time when the Iraqi forces are regaining Mosul and IS is losing more and more territory, ISIL foreign (European) fighters are increasingly being squeezed out of their strongholds. We have to capture them at borders or identify their hideaways and supply chains in our Member States.
There is no logic behind guaranteeing access to databases only to national border guards, who are not using their access properly, and completely denying access to Frontex experts, when both are carrying out the same tasks - registering and controlling migrants and refugees at borders.
Europe has to learn how to deal with these returnees adequately. The Anti-Terrorism Directive is a key tool in the joint fight to avert terrorism by criminalising preparatory acts, including travelling overseas with the intention to join a terrorist group. Most of the recent terrorist attacks on European soil were perpetrated by ‘home-grown’ terrorists and some of these were returned foreign fighters.
The Anti-Terrorism Directive is a key tool in the joint fight to avert terrorism by criminalising preparatory acts, including travelling overseas with the intention to join a terrorist group
The scale of this phenomenon has reached unprecedented levels: by December 2015, between 27,000 and 31,000 persons from around 86 different countries had joined Islamic State and other violent extremist groups. Returned foreign fighters pose a particular threat because of their potential multiplier effect: they can radicalise other individuals they come into contact with.
Another tool which is a key component in recognising foreign fighters is the targeted revision of Article 7 of the Schengen Borders Code. This revision will make it compulsory for border management authorities to cross-check the passports of EU citizens who are returning home from a third state with SIS and national databases. In the past, this was only compulsory for citizens of third countries. The EPP Group is pushing for the adoption of this revision to take place in 2016 still.
The revision of Article 7 of the Schengen Borders Code will make it compulsory for border management authorities to cross-check the passports of EU citizens who are returning home from a third state with SIS and national databases
A further layer of information checking will be added through the proposed Entry-Exit System (EES) which is currently under consideration and the EU Travel and Information Authorisation System (ETIAS), which is expected to come before the Parliament by the end of 2016.
ETIAS will provide prior checks for visa-exempt third-country nationals who will be travelling to the Schengen area, whereas the Entry-Exit-System will store the fingerprints and facial images of every third-country national who will cross our external borders and will provide the Member States with this information. With safe external borders all EU citizens can profit from a safe Schengen Area without internal borders.
As explained in this article, much has been done since the Paris attacks to make the Schengen zone a safer place and give terrorists no loopholes they can use for their brutal attacks. However, there is still some work to do: there are proposals in the making which have to become reality.
We have to realise that Member States have been very reluctant to cooperate, and every time the EU was blamed, it was mostly Member States that refused to take the necessary decisions
The European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs has been debating the availability and usage of shared information systems for any border crossings that occur. The Parliament is pushing for an effective coordinating mechanism between Europol, Eurojust, SIS and the European Judicial Network; a proposal by the Commission to enhance the interoperability of EU databases is expected to be presented by the Commission soon.
Furthermore, Member States are also encouraged to share Passenger Name Record (PNR) data through the provisions of the EU PNR Directive after its implementation in 2018.
Going back to reintroducing border controls at all borders and to solo actions by Member States leads to less security and huge security gaps
European citizens believed that all the measures mentioned above were already a reality in the EU.
We have to realise that Member States have been very reluctant to cooperate, and every time the EU was blamed, it was mostly Member States that refused to take the necessary decisions.
Going back to reintroducing border controls at all borders and to solo actions by Member States leads to less security and huge security gaps. In the fight against international terrorism and serious crime, we have to make use of the capacities that the EU can create if Member States are willing to help each other. It is not only our safety, but also our freedom, which is on the line.
Rapporteur
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