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The EU Anti-Terror Strategy
UPI Germany Correspondent Berlin (UPI) Sep 12, 2006 The European Union has developed a joint strategy to fight terrorism, and Germany already has a few initiatives in the pipeline for its upcoming presidency to intensify anti-terror cooperation between the 25 member states. In a bid to improve intelligence cooperation at home, the German government early last year in Berlin established a Center for Counter-Terrorism, where Germany's different intelligence services share information about terrorism-related activities with police prosecutors. "Germany wants such a center to be established in all member states," Annegret Bendiek, an EU and terrorism expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, a Berlin-based think tank, Tuesday told United Press International in a telephone interview. "So far, only the major member states are active in this regard." She added the German government, in what would be an unprecedented measure, during its EU presidency in the first half of 2007, would also call for the establishment of "Internet monitoring centers" responsible for searching the Internet for terrorist propaganda and incitement, and if needed, block such Web sites. It makes sense that these centers exist in each of the member states, "because that way the Internet's multiple languages could be covered," Bendiek said. In the wake of a failed train bombing in Germany, Wolfgang Schaeuble, the country's interior minister, had already called for closer monitoring of the Internet, which experts say is the main recruitment and education tool for young terrorists these days. Germany's plans coincide with a larger EU strategy to work together more closely to fight terrorism. In December 2005, Brussels agreed upon a joint counter-terrorism strategy, which aims to meet terrorism networks with the EU's own security networks; it was updated this February to include roughly 160 anti-terror measures. The strategy is based on four different pillars: to prevent people from turning into terrorists; to protect borders and infrastructure; to pursue and arrest terrorists across borders; and to prepare member states so they are able to minimize the consequences of an attack. The EU, in a reaction to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and to the attacks in Madrid and London, has already launched several anti-terror measures. Among other moves, it introduced biometric passports, standardized port security and launched a European arrest warrant, under which terrorism suspects can be pursued across borders. Some of the EU-wide directives, however, have not yet made it into national law. And observers say there are more shortcomings within the EU when it comes to effective anti-terror cooperation. "Subject to appropriate data protection rules national and European data bases must be made more accessible to the competent authorities in all member states," Gijs de Vries, the EU's counter-terrorism coordinator, said in a speech in London late June. He said Europe was not sufficiently protected against chemical, biological or nuclear attacks, and added that the EU's unanimity requirement when it comes to voting "often makes for a slow and cumbersome decision making process." Bendiek, who recently published a paper on the EU counter-terrorism strategy, said the EU needed to develop a joint communication to better react to crises like the one sparked by the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, images that led to worldwide protests and violence. "If the EU had a unified communication, then the radicalization of that conflict might have been prevented," she told UPI. While the EU vows to better cooperate with Muslim countries and the U.S. government in the fight against terror, some in Washington say the EU's anti-terror measures don't go far enough. Leading European politicians, however, are reluctant to implement U.S.-style methods such as massive telephone line tapping, Guantanamo-style prisons or the use of torture to make terrorism suspects talk. "We must not sell our soul," just to curb terrorism, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said in a newspaper interview earlier this year. Bendiek agrees. "The EU strategy is subject to a constant political supervision and control, and I think that's right and necessary," she said. But some EU countries may have their own skeletons in the closet: When U.S. President George W. Bush recently admitted the existence of secret detention centers overseas run by the Central Intelligence Agency, human rights advocates in Europe again sounded the alarm, urging the governments of those countries that harbored these prisons to come forward. They haven't so far, and it's unlikely they ever will. An EU investigation into the matter is ongoing, but has so far failed to dig up any evidence. A report is expected by the end of the year.
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UN General Assembly To Debate New Counter-Terror Measures
United Nations (UPI) Sep 12, 2006Despite its inability to define terrorism, the U.N. General Assembly has decided -- by consensus, no less -- on a plan of action to combat terrorism that will be launched at the high-level segment of its upcoming annual general debate beginning next week. |
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