Brussels, 25/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - Twelve days after the Paris terrorist attacks which claimed the lives of 130 people, MEPs, in Strasbourg on Wednesday 25 November, discussed the latest measures adopted by EU home affairs ministers on 20 November to strengthen the EU's counter-terrorist response (see EUROPE 11435) and tried, not without difficulty, to overcome their divisions, including on the European PNR which is currently under Parliamentary debate.
At the outset, however, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned of the challenges that these attacks posed the EU. “I'd like to repeat the comments I made immediately after the terrible attacks in Paris. I caution against dangerous, pernicious associations equating refugees, asylum seekers and migrants with terrorists. Those who carried out and mounted the terrorist attacks in Paris are precisely those who are forcing the unfortunate people of the world to flee. Tragedy must not be turned into points-scoring”, Juncker said.
He also expressed concern for the fate of the passport-free Schengen area, after a good number of member states, including Malta most recently, had decided to re-establish temporary internal border controls and, as French Home Affairs Minister Bernard Cazeneuve stated on 20 November, will keep them in place for as long as “the threat makes it necessary”.
Schengen is comatose. Juncker argued that “we have to preserve the spirit of Schengen”, even though he acknowledged that the “Schengen system is partially comatose”. However, “those who believe in Europe, in its values, in its principles and in its freedoms must try - and they will do so - to reignite the Schengen spirit”, he went on to urge. “If the Schengen spirit leaves our lands and our hearts, we will lose more than Schengen. A single currency makes no sense if Schengen falls”, he warned, emphasising that Schengen is not a “neutral concept” but “a vital part of European construction”.
Returning to the meeting of 20 November, Juncker again called on the member states to implement the decisions taken, after the finger of blame could have been pointed at them after the first Paris attacks in January 2015 for not fully applying the measures they themselves had agreed.
“The Commission will do all it can to remind them of their commitments”, Juncker stated, going on to give his backing for a European PNR which includes intra-European flights.
He also suggested that European secret services should cooperate more closely, recalling that, in the aftermath of the New York terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, he had stood alongside the then Belgian prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, to underline the need to make the secret services work better together. “That did not happen” he regretted on Wednesday morning.
Persistent tension over European PNR, member states blamed. The failings of the member states were raised by a number of high-ranking MEPs, such as Manfred Weber (Germany), leader of the EPP Group. “In the Council, all you do is copy and paste the same decisions. It's always the same speeches given. Now it's time to get down to work”, he stated. He argued that progress had to be made on a number of areas: the European PNR (the gathering of the personal information of European air passengers), the directive on data protection in police and legal proceedings and retention of personal data. Home affairs ministers will hold a debate in December on this piece of legislation that was overturned by the Court of Justice of the EU on the grounds that it infringed fundamental rights. Work also has to be done on the financing of terrorism, Weber said.
Some Socialist MEPs used Weber's intervention on the European PNR to put their version of the truth, EPP MEPs having constantly accused the Socialists, Liberals and Greens/EFA of slowing things down and playing into the hands of the terrorists. Pervenche Berès (France) assured Parliament that the French Socialists backed the measure and said that, if there had been any delaying, it was because it lacked the requirement that member states share the data collected.
Guy Verhofstadt (Belgium), who leads the ALDE Group, also highlighted the failings of the member states, going as far as to call for a European intelligence agency to be set up - a proposal that has, as yet, not won over the member states (on 20 November, German minister Thomas de Maizière spoke of a waste of energy). Verhofstadt has, nonetheless, written to the Commission on this matter. Shocked that political leaders could level accusations at one another, he said it was serious that member states should struggle to share information they have on possible suspects. Ten months after the Paris Charlie Hebdo attacks, “there are only 12 member states which send the necessary information to the Schengen information system”, he said.
He also refuted accusations of deliberately slowing up the European PNR. On the contrary, “Parliament proposed an immediate regulation setting up a single transnational system”, whereas a directive will take more time, he pointed out. “At the very least there has to be compulsory sharing of information - but the member states won't have it”, he stated.
For the Greens/EFA Group, improving the sharing of information on persons known to the intelligence services of more than one state is also crucial. “Sharing intelligence must be the rule”, said Philippe Lamberts and the means to be able to do so must be provided. However, “putting our societies under constant surveillance is not enough and is unacceptable”. He also called on the member states to assess their relations with certain partner countries, such as Saudi Arabia, and to give consideration to the effects of their interventions in the theatres of war. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)