Brussels, 22/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - Two coordinated terrorist attacks, an hour apart, struck Brussels, the capital of Belgium and home to the European institutions, on Tuesday morning 22 March. The attacks targeted first the international airport at Zaventem and then the Maelbeek metro station. The provisional death toll stands at 34, with 200 people injured. Responsibility has been claimed by the terrorist organisation Daesh.
European leaders have been unanimous in their condemnation of the attacks and have called for European counter-terrorism cooperation to be stepped up. Denouncing “an attack on our open democratic society”, the member states' leaders pledged in a joint press release that they would stand “united and firm in the fight against hatred, violent extremism and terrorism” and said that the attacks only strengthen “our resolve to defend the European values”.
Belgium has been struck by two “blind, violent and cowardly” attacks, said Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel. “Additional security measures will be put in place: public transport restrictions and border controls”, he added. “We feared an attack and it has happened”, Michel said. The country has declared three days of national mourning.
These attacks “have hit Brussels today, Paris yesterday - but it is Europe as a whole that has been targeted. The European Union and its Institutions stand united in the face of terrorism”, reacted European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. “These events have affected us, but they have not made us afraid. We will continue our work, to face the terrorist threat together, and to bring European solutions to questions that concern us all”, he went on to say, giving assurances that everything possible would be done to ensure the safety of Commission officials.
On Tuesday, Juncker held discussions on the attacks with Charles Michel and Belgian Minister of the Interior Jan Jambon, as well as with European Parliament President Martin Schulz, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande. In a press conference, Hollande said that, through these atrocities in Brussels, “the whole of Europe has been attacked”.
After suffering a wave of terrorist attacks in November 2015, France, whose Prime Minister Manuel Valls will visit the European Commission, has decided to step up security in its transport networks and at its borders. Similar measures have been put in place in a number of other countries, including at London and Danish airports, the authorities of these countries have said.
In Germany, Frankfurt Airport, one of the most important in Europe in terms of international traffic, has also tightened security.
At the European Parliament where the level of security has also been increased, Schulz said he was “horrified by the despicable and cowardly attacks which took place in Brussels”. These acts “are born from barbarism and hatred which do justice to nothing and no one”, he stated. Several of the Parliament's political groups also expressed their solidarity with the victims. The leader of the EPP Group, Manfred Weber (Germany) said that everything possible would be done “to protect the fundamental values of our society”.
The Secretariat General of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) also “strongly” condemned “the barbaric terrorist attacks carried out in Brussels”.
Calls for European PNR to be adopted as quickly as possible. Aside from the condemnations, a number of leaders also called for efforts at European level to tackle terrorism to be stepped up. France's Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve was one who urged the European Parliament to approve “as a matter of urgency” the European PNR, which would allow the personal data of air passengers to be gathered so as to be able to track the movements of European jihadists returning to the EU. The European PNR, adopted by home affairs ministers in December 2015 in the wake of Paris attacks of 13 November and by the Parliament's civil liberties committee (see EUROPE 11450), has not yet been formally approved in plenary session. Several of the Parliament's political groups want the package on data protection reform to be put to the vote at the same time.
Cazeneuve also urged the member states to begin systematically checking all travellers at European airports. Home affairs ministers have just adopted the reform amending the Schengen Borders Code to allow systematic checks on all people, including European nationals, at the external borders (see EUROPE 11499).
“Coordination and the fight against terrorism must be further strengthened” in Europe and internationally, the minister said, noting that a European task force had been set up to tackle the trafficking of forged documents.
Europe has sought to toughen anti-terrorism instruments over the last three years, following the fatal shootings at the Jewish Museum in Brussels on 24 May 2014 carried out by French national Mehdi Nemmouche. Efforts were speeded up after the January 2015 attacks on the weekly Charlie Hebdo and the Hypercacher supermarket, then the Copenhagen attack in February of the same year. An attempted attack on board a Thalys train was foiled in summer 2015, leading to decisions on tightening a number of security measures on trains. Ministers agreed to have the names of suspected jihadists systematically included in the Schengen Information System (SIS), a gap that had been noted at the time of the previous attacks. Then in November 2015 came the attacks in Paris and Saint Denis, including on the Bataclan, which claimed 130 lives.
In addition to collecting air passenger data as part of the European PNR, EU home affairs ministers have discussed improving the exchange of information on the movements of foreign fighters in areas held by Daesh. They have also taken action to improve information exchange with Europol. A strengthened counter-terrorism unit was set up within Europol in January of this year to try to pool member states' resources and gather intelligence. National intelligence services have been encouraged voluntarily to exchange more information.
The EU has also begun a dialogue with the internet giants, particularly social media, to encourage them to do more to track radicalisation and incitement to terrorism. A recent directive which will make it a criminal offence throughout the EU to assist preparations for travel to training areas is now waiting for Parliament to endorse its position (see EUROPE 11510).
The European Commission also adopted an action plan at the start of February to counter the financing of terrorism (see EUROPE 11481). (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)