The Commission presented on 24 July a new EU security strategy focusing on critical infrastructure protection, the fight against cyber crime, responding to hybrid threats and organised crime.
It also presented three action plans against organised crime, which is estimated to cost the EU between 218 and 282 billion euros a year: an action plan on online sexual abuse against children, an action plan on firearms and an action plan on drugs, in particular synthetic drugs, which are increasingly produced in and exported from the EU.
Comprehensive strategy in 4 pillars
Detailed by the Vice-President for Promoting the European Way of Life, Margarítis Schinás, it identifies four “strategic priorities for action”. The first project will be conducted with Commissioners Margrethe Vestager and Thierry Breton and will focus on new rules on the protection and resilience of critical physical and digital infrastructures.
The Commission wants increased cooperation between the public and private sectors for “better physical protection of public spaces and adequate detection systems”.
With more frequent and more sophisticated cyber attacks - the President of the Commission herself referred in June to attacks on European hospitals during the pandemic attributed to China - the Commission wants to complete the revision of the Directive on the security of networks and information systems. It will set up a joint cybersecurity unit and develop new international partnerships.
The second pillar is the adaptation to new threats and the use by criminal groups of technological advances such as malware and data theft, which have been on the rise since the health crisis. Here the Commission will consider measures to combat identity theft. It could also adapt its enforcement actions in the context of digital investigations.
The third area of work is that of hybrid threats, for which the High Representative, Josep Borrell, will be responsible within NATO or the G7.
The final area is the fight against terrorism and organised crime, with, among other things, new actions to combat radicalisation and foreign terrorist fighters, through new initiatives on border security.
Binding legislation to remove child pornography online
More specifically, the Commission has already presented three action plans in the field of organised crime on 24 July. And it made a sad assessment of online sexual abuse against children, with an upsurge in child pornography in the EU, which has become the global “epicentre”, according to Commissioner Ylva Johansson.
Demand for such material is reported to have increased by 25% in some Member States during the pandemic, as well as storage. The Netherlands stores the largest number of such images or videos and the EU stores 2/3 of this material worldwide.
Commissioner Johansson has therefore announced binding legislation in 2021 on the removal of this online material. In the meantime, platforms will again be invited on a voluntary basis to increase their efforts to remove this content, with Facebook and Messenger currently reporting over 80% of the child pornography removed online.
The Commission will also work on the creation of a European Centre for Combating Child Sexual Abuse, along the lines of similar centres such as the “National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the US”, NEMEC, which currently provides the few statistics on this phenomenon. This European centre could receive reports of child abuse observed by companies.
The Commissioner cited appalling figures on 24 July, with an increase in reports of online child sexual abuse from 23,000 in 2010 to more than 725,000 in 2019 and a global increase from 1 million reports of abuse in 2010 to almost 17 million in 2019 and almost 70 million images and videos.
Link to the communication: https://bit.ly/2D2XVR4
Drugs: EU produces and exports more and more drugs
Another initiative is the EU Agenda and Action Plan on Drugs 2021-2025, which aims to “ significantly step up” EU action to reduce the demand and supply of illicit drugs through a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach (scientific, environmental, socio-political, technological and international dimensions).
The institution estimates the retail value of this market in Europe at 30 billion euros per year and 100 tonnes of cocaine were seized in the EU in 2019. Around eight strategic priorities, the programme will cover all aspects of illicit drug trafficking: from organised criminal groups to the management of external borders and illicit distribution and production.
It will also address prevention (raising awareness of the harmful effects of drugs) and access to treatment, harm reduction and drugs in prisons.
The plan also refers to the potential impact of Covid-19 on addiction services (staff shortages, interruption and closure of services...), drug use and the drug market.
Link to the action plan: https://bit.ly/3eWuWvu
Firearms
The Commission is concerned about the number of illegally owned firearms in the EU (35 million, according to 2017 figures), which is higher than the number of legally owned weapons (56% of the total number of weapons registered in the EU). It intends to revitalise its actions with the Member States, but also with the countries of the Western Balkans, Moldova and Ukraine.
It will insist on the implementation of the European legislative arsenal against the black market in arms or work on the development of comparable statistics on firearms-related events and seizures of firearms throughout the EU. A recent study identified 23 mass shooting incidents that occurred in (semi-)public space in Europe during the period 2009-2018, with 341 casualties. In 2017, firearms were used in 41% of terrorist attacks, up from 38% in 2016.
Link to the communication: https://bit.ly/2ZXjIme
Link to the Strategy: https://bit.ly/2OUBWOQ (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic and Damien Genicot)