The European Commission announced on Thursday 18 November in a new evaluation report that Member States have broadly complied with EU counter-terrorism rules set out in Directive 2017/541, which replaced a 2002 framework decision, and have strengthened their approach to criminal justice in relation to terrorism.
“Having minimum standards for defining and punishing terrorist offences in the EU has a clear added value in preventing legal loopholes that can be exploited by terrorists”, the European Commission said in a statement. The Directive has also contributed to increasing the level of assistance and protection offered to victims of terrorism.
Although the Directive did have an impact on fundamental rights, it was assessed as proportionate. “Overall, most of the stakeholders consulted in the external study did not consider the implementation of the Directive to be problematic from a fundamental rights perspective”, although potential areas of tension remain, particularly “for those groups that are at increased risk of discrimination and violence”.
Several challenges remain in the implementation of the Directive, such as the difficulty for some Member States to “prove terrorist intent, especially when gathering evidence located outside the national territory”. Another problem identified in some Member States is the difficulty of classifying violent right-wing extremist acts as acts of terrorism.
The European Commission is developing a working document which will be shared with Member States in autumn 2021 and will give an overview of violent extremist groups.
As regards cross-border victims of terrorism, despite an increase in assistance, they still face practical difficulties in contacting several Member States due to the lack of contact points for receiving requests.
Link to the report: https://bit.ly/3Dqe5ye (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)