Brussels, 09/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - With France still in a state of alert on Friday 9 January, following the fatal attacks on Charlie Hebdo and a wave of shootings, the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, has announced that the fight against terrorism would be the priority agenda of the forthcoming European Council, to be held in Brussels on 12 February.
“I spoke to President Hollande (of France) yesterday evening, and I intend to make use of the meeting of the heads of state and government on 12 February to discuss the EU's response to the challenges” of the fight against terrorism, said Tusk, at a meeting in Riga with the Latvian Prime Minister, Laimdota Straujuma. “Terror has struck Europe”, Tusk stressed. “The EU cannot do everything on its own, but it can help to reinforce our security”, he said, recalling the creation of the European arrest warrant following the attacks of 11 September 2001 in the United States. “But we need to do more”. Amongst other things, Tusk called on the European Parliament to “speed up work on the proposed European PNR (Passenger Name Record), which could help to detect the movements of dangerous individuals”.
This Sunday 11 January, an international ministerial meeting will be held in Paris, by request of the French Minister for home affairs, Bernard Cazeneuve. The American justice minister, Eric Holder, will also attend, alongside European Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos. The meeting will be attended only by the ministers of the countries “most concerned” by terrorism, such as France, Spain, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom, Cazeneuve explained.
The next step of the European response will then be taken in Brussels on 19 January, at the next meeting of the Foreign Affairs Ministers of the EU, and in Riga on 29 and 30 January, at the working sessions of the informal meeting of the Home Affairs Ministers of the EU. Only then will the Commission present its new Agenda for internal security, to which Juncker referred on Thursday 8 January.
During this period, the political groups of the European Parliament will also push the dossiers they would like the heads of state to tackle. As far as the EPP is concerned, the question of reinforcing the Schengen area is a vital one. On 9 October of last year, the member states agreed at home affairs minister level to reinforce controls on the external borders of the EU and to step up controls on suspect individuals. This could be worded in a modification of the Schengen borders code, although the ministers initially seemed to prefer the use of 'guidelines'. The question of the exchange of information between the intelligence services will also be on the table, with certain groups asking why Europeans sometimes find out about planned attacks on their soil from the American services.
The coming discussions are expected to focus on ways to improve intelligence, to identify jihadis (a special team of investigators and Internet experts within Europe tasked with combating jihadism was announced in October by the Italian Presidency: Ed) or monitoring their movements within the EU. On the PNR, however, the battle is expected to be a tough one for the member states, as the MEPs are strongly of the opinion that European privacy should not be sold out on the grounds of security. “At this moment in time, we do not feel that the other groups are prepared to put aside their misgivings”, an EPP spokesperson said. The draft PNR directive, which was presented by Cecilia Malmstrom in February 2012, has been at deadlock at the EP since April 2013 following its rejection by the committee on civil liberties of the EP. And according to the latest discussions within that same committee, for instance the talks on Thursday 8 January on the fate of the 'retention of personal data' directive, the MEPs do not yet seem ready to give in to the demands of the Council. However, the member states are unstinting in their efforts. They asked the EP to give a certain amount of ground on this dossier at their December meeting and on Thursday, the EU High Representative, the Italian Socialist Federica Mogherini, called for the instrument to be adopted. (SP)