Brussels, 24/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - Improving information exchange among the member states and speeding up European legislation on new instruments to counter the terrorist threat. Those were the pledges made on Thursday 21 March by home affairs and justice ministers and representatives of the European institutions at an extraordinary meeting convened in Brussels in the wake of the terrorist attacks in the European capital on 22 March.
The meeting, attended by 25 ministers, began with a minute's silence for the victims of the Brussels attacks. The purpose of the meeting was simple: to disprove the criticism that the institutional wheels in Brussels turn too slowly to be able to provide a response to the urgency of the current level of terrorist threat in Europe. Of the 5,000 European citizens who travelled to Syria to fight, 400 are back in Europe - a figure highlighted by German Home Affairs Minister Thomas De Maizière.
The ministers made 15 commitments listed in a joint statement. Some of these commitments are reminiscent of those made at a similar meeting following the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015 (see EUROPE 11435). Here again, Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos did not conceal his frustration, railing against “the lack of political will”, of “effective coordination” and of “trust” among the member states.
Numerous matters of legislation were mentioned, on some of which political agreement had been reached at the JHA Council of 9 March - systematic checks at the EU's borders, for example (see EUROPE 11510). Dutch minister Ronald Plasterk, who chaired the meeting, indeed, noted that the EU did not need “new plans” to tackle terrorism, despite these latest attacks. Hence the insistence on the parts of all those at the meeting on the importance of effective cooperation and structured exchange of judicial information and intelligence.
The nature of the information and the means of sharing them was discussed in detail. Ministers would like to increase information sharing with transport authorities and operators. They pledged, under severe pressure from the European Commission, to improve the interoperability of their databases in the fields of security, travel and migration, and to provide information to databases, such as the Schengen Information System, which should include an automated fingerprint recognition system, and of Interpol. Exchange should also be encouraged through the secondment of additional national experts and liaison officers to the Europol counter-terrorism centre.
The Commission, too, made commitments, sometimes with a timetable attached. In the coming weeks, most probably on 6 April, it will present its communication on so-called smart borders which will include a regulation on monitoring movements in and out of the EU. In this context, the European institutions and agencies have promised to present measures in June to improve information gathering and checking. The Commission is due to report back to the Council in June on discussions with internet access providers on the possibility of removing content on sites aiming to radicalise and recruit fighters. A code of conduct against hate speech on the internet is expected to be prepared between now and then.
Pressure for Parliament to agree to “European PNR”. High in the Council's list of priorities is the, now recurring, issue of the European PNR. This instrument for the collection of the personal data of air passengers is currently in the hands of MEPs alone. In their statement, ministers set them a deadline: the directive is to be adopted next month. European Parliament Vice-President Sylvie Guillaume (S&D, France), who attended the meeting, assured ministers of the “strong” political commitment among MEPs to approve this text “as quickly as possible”. She nonetheless laid down conditions. The PNR could be adopted by the end of April if, at the same time, the data protection package is also approved. The Council will have to speed up its own discussion on this issue, she underlined.
The European PNR is, theoretically, ready to be adopted, confirmed the Parliament rapporteur, Timothy Kirkhope (ECR, UK) in a press release issued on Thursday. He felt that, in practice, however, that will prove unlikely because of the incessant objections from the Social Democrats and the Liberals. The file could have been closed months ago, he said, if “the Left” had not “created an artificial link between the PNR and data protection legislation”. He warned it will be “at least several weeks” before this latest file could be put to the vote. He stated, too, as did French Home Affairs Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, that the proposal for a European PNR already contained data protection rules. Expressing frustration largely shared by the Council, Avramopoulos interjected several times: “It has to be adopted now”.
Addressing the problem of false documents. “Thousands of blank passports have been taken by Daesh” which has made an industry of falsifying them, Cazeneuve noted, not wishing to confirm the figure of 200,000 false identity papers in the hands of the terrorist organisation. He repeated France's call for a task force to be set up specifically to deal with this issue. The counter-terrorism coordinator, Gilles de Kerchove, felt the French proposal was an “excellent” one. He listed the initiatives already being taken to identify false passports: use of European databases, deployment of specialist officers in “hotspot” centres to identify irregular migrants in Greece and Italy, and so-called second line checks in the EU by Europol officers.
With the watchword of turning words into action, ministers pledged to pursue ongoing work “in a resolute manner” on the directive on terrorism and criminalising certain actions (see EUROPE 11510), revision of the Schengen Borders Code to allow systematic checks of all travellers, including European nationals, crossing external Schengen borders, improving the traceability of firearms and deactivation of weapons (see EUROPE 11513), the action plan to combat the financing of terrorism (see EUROPE 11481), the inclusion of third country nationals in the European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS), and increasing cooperation in counter terrorism with Turkey and the countries of North Africa, the Middle East and the Western Balkans.
On arriving in Brussels, Italian Home Affairs Minister Angelo Alfano announced the launch of a national anti-radicalisation plan. “In Italy, I will propose a national counter-radicalisation plan and strategy to prevent a seed sown in Italy becoming a poisonous fruit in the years to come”, he said.
The statement by the ministers and the representatives of the European institutions can be found at:
http: /./http://www.consilium.europa.eu/press-releases-pdf/2016/3/40802210384_en_635944433000000000.pdf (Original version in French by Jan Kordys with Mathieu Bion)