On Wednesday 18 October, the European Commission presented a new raft of measures aiming, amongst other things, to make it harder to plan terrorist acts in the EU and to improve intelligence relations between Europol and third countries.
At a press conference, the European Commissioner with responsibility for the Security Union, Sir Julian King, presented initiatives aiming to cut off terrorists' margin for manoeuvre, even though it will not be possible to stop all attacks, he stressed.
These initiatives include a specific action to provide financial support to projects aiming to make public areas secure. The Commissioner said that the attacks on Nice, Berlin or Barcelona, this summer, had taken the form of low-cost attacks in a van on the public highway.
The Commission is therefore announcing €18.5 million from the Internal Security Fund to support projects of this kind. A further €100 million will be earmarked in 2018 from the regional funds and made available to cities investing in security solutions. Also next year, the Commission will give the member states guideline tools to make their security spaces even safer, including security solutions built into design.
On this subject, the Commission also hopes to encourage cooperation between local players in the private sector. It will create an operators' forum aiming to encourage public-private partnerships in the field of security and to promote exchanges with private operators, such as shopping centre managers, concert organisers, sports facility managers and car hire companies.
On Wednesday, the Commission also announced measures related to chemical substances that can be used to make bombs. He presented a plan to prepare for attacks committed using chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear substances (CBRN), for instance creating an EU CBRN security network and a CBRN intelligence centre, to come under the European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC) within Europol, the institution explained.
The Commission also intends to make sure that the member states are making full use of the rules on chemical precursors adopted in 2013 and that the mechanisms to ban the sale or supply of licences to purchase certain products are effective. The recommendation to the member states should make it possible to ensure this and help them to react more promptly. Two infringement procedures on this subject are still open, against Spain and Romania. The aim is also to see whether this regulation responds to the initial objectives; the Commission will therefore carry out an impact assessment in 2018 to find out whether or not it requires modifications.
New mandate for the PNR agreement with Canada
In this package of measures, the Commission also tackled the sensitive issue of the encryption of electronic communications, which poses legal and technical challenges for the member states and their anti-terrorism investigation units. The institution has still not tabled a legislative proposal, which it is disinclined to do, despite calls on it to act from countries such as France and Germany.
At this stage, therefore, it has opted for 'guidelines' and very specific means of overcoming the technical problems posed by these messaging platforms, which are sometimes used by terrorist groups. A working group was set up on the subject based on the consultation of the member states; the Commission proposed on Wednesday to support Europol's efforts in the 'decryption' systems, establish an encryption reference centre, create a toolbox of legal and technical instruments and train the national competent services with an envelope of €500,000 in 2018.
As it has already announced, however, the Commission will propose legislative areas of work for access to electronic evidence (in the 'cloud', for instance) in the framework of cross-border investigations related to terrorism or major organised crime.
Commissioner King also confirmed on Wednesday that the Commission would ask the Council for a new mandate to negotiate a new agreement with Canada on the transfer of airline passengers' data. An initial draft was knocked back on 26 July by the Court of Justice of the EU, for reasons of proportionality, amongst others. The Commission is therefore asking the member states again to provide it with a new mandate to negotiate with Canada.
Europol and third countries
At international level, the Commission also hopes to bolster Europol's ties with a range of countries such as Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria, and has therefore proposed to start negotiations to sign agreements between these countries and Europol on the transfer of personal data with a view to preventing terrorist attacks.
It has also proposed that the EU finalise its accession to the Convention of the Council of Europe on the prevention of terrorism and its additional protocol. The EU signed up in 2015, but after having adopted its own anti-terrorism directed, it must now finalise the process, it explained. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)