Brussels, 18/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 18 December, the European Council called to reinforce the existing tools to step up the fight against terrorism, as anticipated.
The conclusions adopted at this meeting of the heads of state or government of the EU in Brussels stressed the need for the systematic entry in the European police files, such as SIS 2, of the data on foreign combatants, on the extension of the European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS) to third-country nationals and the reinforcement of information exchanges between the national counter-terrorism authorities. These authorities are also called upon to work together more in the framework of the future counter-terrorism centre, to be set up within Europol.
Another important point of the conclusions concerns access for Frontex and Europol to the relevant databases and the stated desire of the European leaders to increase the volume of data shared by the member states with the Europol databases. The European Council also stressed the need to carry out systematic controls on the external borders of the Schengen zone, including for European nationals. It has also undertaken swiftly to examine the recent proposals on firearms (see EUROPE 11451).
At the same time, the European Council welcomed the progress made on the dossier of the European system for the collection of airline passenger data ('European PNR'), which is to be formally adopted in January 2016 (see EUROPE 11450). Just over a month after the attacks in Paris, which left 130 people dead, they also reiterated their intention of using all instruments at their disposal, including in the framework of cooperation with the United States.
Following the meeting, several leaders took the floor on this subject, some stressing the 'European PNR' dossier, others cooperation within the EU. The Belgian Prime Minister, Charles Michel, said that “as regards terrorism, there is enormous determination to try to improve the exchange of information”. “There is progress to be made, to better share the data each party has”, he added.
For his part, the French President, François Hollande, welcomed the “progress made towards the 'PNR'”. “It is not just about deciding on, but implementing the PNR, which needs to be done as soon as possible”, he stressed. He went on to say that the “fight against the trafficking in weapons must be carried out with even greater coordination and therefore even greater ambition”, covering “all weapons, because the weapons used in organised crime or trafficking could end up in the hands of terrorists at any time”. He also referred to the fight against the funding of terrorism and welcomed the results of a resolution of the United Nations Security Council on terrorism, which was adopted in New York on Thursday 17 December. This will allow us to “fight dirty money and tax havens”, he added.
This resolution, which was drafted jointly by Washington and Moscow, directly targets the terrorist group Daesh. It calls on all countries to “act decisively and energetically to cut off funding and other financial resources”, to the organisation, such as oil and the trafficking in antiques, and to sanction its financial support “more actively”. The States are called upon to make the financing of terrorism a “serious crime on their national statute books”, even in the absence of any link to a specific terrorist act, and to step up exchanges of information on this subject, including between governments and the private sector. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic with Elodie Lamer and Camille-Cerise Gessant)