Brussels, 20/10/2004 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, the European Commission published four communications on combating terrorism, the protection of infrastructures, inter-bank cooperation and the setting in place of a central warning system for serious crises in Brussels. On Monday 25 October at the Justice and Home Affairs Council, Commissioner Antonio Vittorino will present the proposals, which are a first stage in the European Commission's contribution to the preparatory work by High Representative Javier Solana and Counter-Terrorism Coordinator Gijs de Vries for new guidelines on combating terrorism, to be launched at the European Council on 17 December.
Combating terrorism funding. The European Commission suggests giving free access to banks' databases for financial intelligence services. Information would remain coded except when it concerns a person or a group suspected of having terrorist links. Arrangements are still to be defined. The European Commission assures that this provision is justified because terrorism-related financial transactions concern low amounts, which are not always detected by banks as being suspect. The communication points out that the attacks in Madrid cost only EUR 8,000.
The Commission urgently insists that the Council should adopt its proposal on preventing laundering through customs cooperation, to better monitor funds as they cross borders. It suggests adoption of minimum common standards for the verification of clients' identity by banking institutions and the registration of identification data. The Commission urges Member States to resolve their differences over the drawing up of the European list of terrorist organisations, whose assets are frozen. Difficulties occur when there is designation of cover-up groups, the designation of leaders of groups already on the list and changes in the names of groups already on the list.
Making information circulate and coordinating intervention in the event of major crisis. For this, the European Commission proposes setting in place a secure general rapid alert system called ARGUS. The system would connect the various European warning systems already in existence (civil protection, consumer health, contagious diseases, radiological emergencies and biological attack), as well as a new European Law Enforcement Network, the LEN. The LEN would be set up in 2005 and managed by Europol, the European Police Office. The ARGUS system would be used for any large-scale crisis, and not just to combat terrorist activity, the Commission specifies. It would be supported by a Crisis Centre that the European Commission would also establish within its services.
For the protection of critical infrastructure, the European Commission suggests in a third communication that an EU Critical Infrastructure Warning Information Network (CIWIN) should be set in place to protect transport, nuclear power plants, oil refineries, drinking water supplies and hospitals, etc. This CIWIN network would also be linked to the global ARGUS system. In addition to its function of early warning in the case of danger, it would allow Member States as well as owner and operators of critical infrastructure to exchange information on shared threats, vulnerabilities and appropriate measures and strategies to mitigate risk in support of critical infrastructure protection. Where sectorial standards do not exist or international norms have not yet been established, the EU would work on establishing European norms. CIWIN would be created in 2005.
In a fourth, more general communication, which takes up the guidelines of the first three, the European Commission proposes that the first European Day for the victims of terrorism should be established by 11 March 2005, as a tribute to the victims of the attacks in Madrid.
These different proposals of the European Commission remain very general. No concrete details - arrangements, cost or staffing - on the functioning of the ARGUS network or on access by intelligence services to banks' databases were given. "We put ideas forward and, if there is consensus, then we see the practical aspects", the European Commission replied, adding that it has little time in which to prepare them as the European Council had called for these proposals in June.