Global Response to Terror: EU

In her treatise titled "EU Strategy on Counter-Terrorism - Steps towards a coherent network policy" Annegret Bendiek of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs writes about the difficulties in realising the harmonisation of member state policies against terror into a unified EU Counter-Terrorism strategy, adopted by the European Council in December 2005. The strategy reflects the EU's aim of forming a network of the member states foreign and domestic policies in the fight against terrorism. The accompanying action plan on combating terrorism contains 160 separate measures in the four strands of work of the EU strategy (prevent, protect, pursue and respond). The main objective of this EU policy is to confront "the network of terror with networks against terror". The scale of attacks in Madrid, London and a series of disrupted plots across the EU were not profound enough to resolve coherence issues plaguing the EU level policy harmonization across member states, but it has definitely become a catalyst for increased levels of cooperation and coordination among them. Soon after 9/11 the Heads of State and Government declared their intention of making the fight against terrorism a foremost priority of the EU. This intention was emphasised in the adoption of a comprehensive 64 point "Plan of Action on Combating Terrorism". The plan of action, within the framework of the CFSP (Common Foreign and Security Policy), was aimed at enhancing police and judicial cooperation, putting an end to the funding of terrorism and improving air security. At the Extraordinary Summit in Sept 2001, the European Council found military retaliation by the USA against any states abetting, supporting or harbouring terrorists to be generally legitimate on the basis of UN Resolution 1368. However there was no consensus for a common EU position on the issue of when and under which circumstances "prevention" needs to be enforced through military means in combating international terrorism. In the aftermath of the London bombings of June 2005, the member states agreed to accelerate the implementation of the action plan on combating terrorism which at that point, read more like a list of deficiencies.

Fundamentally however, the strategic committment boiled down to "combatting terrorism globally while respecting human rights". The four functional streams that emerged were (a) PREVENT, dealing with factors or root causes leading to radicalization and recruitment, (b) PROTECT, to ensure safety of citizens and infrastructure while reducing vulnerability, (c) PURSUE investigation globally, impede planning, travel and communication, disrupt support networks, cut off funding and access to weapons and other implements and bring all terror network stakeholders to justice and (d) RESPOND, by ensuring adequate levels of preparation, manage and minimize the consequences of an attack, improve response capabilities including dealing with the aftermath i.e., coordination of response and the needs of the victims.

Overall, this makes for an interesting case study of how different countries can come together to combat the menace of terrorism through an institutional framework. This is however, a long term approach requiring high levels of mutual trust, understanding and funding, and there is always the danger of gold-plating specifications and over-bureaucratization.