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Global terrorism has emerged as an ominous threat to twenty-first century world order. From Taliban’s tyranny in Afghanistan to the rampant LTTE insurgency in Sri Lanka to the gruesome human rights violations in Chechnya to the Al Qaeda sponsored bombings in Madrid’s train stations to the Sept 11 attacks in New York, the reign of ugly terror has truly taken global proportions; threatening to sunder the socio-political fabric of nations at large.
A particular terrorist outfit’s operations are no longer confined within specific national boundaries. With the help of international funding, terrorism has gone international. In this disturbing scenario, perhaps no country can defeat terrorism on its own. We need proactive participation of international bodies to counter global terrorism.
In the aftermath of Sept 11, 2001 and March 11, 2004 (Al Qaeda engineered bomb attacks in Madrid), the fight against terrorism has become a priority area for the EU. In fact, since Sept 2001, the need for a formulation of an anti-terrorism policy, which would have application across the Union, has gained urgency. Ten days after the attacks, a series of concrete measures were tabled by the European Commission, which led to a plan of action, adopted by a special European Council on 21 September 2001.
However, it should be referred that EU’s initiatives against terrorism were already in force before the Sept 11 catastrophe. In this context, the Tampere Summit in Oct 1999 deserves special mention. Here, EU formally decided to increase judicial cooperation between its member states in order to fight crime including terrorism. The decision was influenced by the insurgency operations of the ETA and the IRA, of which many member states had borne the brunt.
Presently EU’s concerted strategy to counter terrorism is comprehensive and covers a gamut of measures. In June 2002, EU’s Council of Ministers adopted a comprehensive framework to this effect, which includes measures pertaining to information exchange, police and judicial cooperation, security of travel documents, money laundering, etc. European arrest warrants and EU evidence warrants are some other pragmatic measures in this direction. The EU has also clearly defined terrorist offences and approximated the level of sanctions between member states. A terrorist offence is defined as an offence that is committed with the aim of intimidating people and seriously altering or destroying the political, economic, or social structures of a country (murder, bodily injuries, hostage taking, extortion, the fabrication of weapons, committing attacks, threatening to commit any of the above, etc.).
There is continuous cooperation among EU member states on intelligence sharing, law enforcement and control of financial assets, which together make it easier to detect and nab terrorists. Besides that, the criminal law of the 25 member states are so aligned that throughout the EU, acts of terrorism are prosecuted and punished in the same manner. Furthermore, Europol (European Police Office) is also helpful in curbing terrorism within EU member states. This European law enforcement organisation endeavours at improving the effectiveness and cooperation of competent authorities in EU member states in preventing and combating terrorism, unlawful drug trafficking and other serious forms of organised crime.
Though the EU was extremely proactive in combating international terrorism, it was the Madrid tragedy that gave a fillip to the momentum. The lethal rail bombings on 11 March 2004, which had a toll of 190 dead and 1500 injured, induced an all-out effort from member states to counter this global scourge. It also compelled heads of member states to explore counter-terrorism options at the Spring European Council meet in March 2004.
Furthermore, EU leaders have also adopted a declaration of solidarity. The declaration asserts that a terrorist attack against one member state of the union will be construed as an attack against all member states of the union, and the nation facing terrorist attack will be entitled to all manner of military and other assistance from other member states. The declaration mirrors Article 42 of the draft of the European Constitution. This concerted approach to tackle global terrorism would not only help discourage terrorist outfits in Europe but also those operating beyond the continent.
This is not all. On 25 March 2004, Gijs de Vries, former Deputy Interior Minister of the Netherlands, was appointed by EU leaders as ‘Mr Terrorism’. His job is that of counter-terrorism coordinator and in this capacity, he is engaged in coordinating EU’s action on terrorism and also ensuring that EU member states are implementing mutually agreed counter-terrorism measures.
EU leaders decided that by 30 June 2004, all member states should implement the measures elucidated in the EU action plan against terrorism, which was introduced following the Sept 11 catastrophe. This includes the European arrest warrant, joint investigations and anti-money laundering steps. However, till today all 25 member states have not yet implemented these measures in totality.
Recently the European Council urged EU member states to strengthen Europol’s role in the fight against insurgency. The suggested two-pronged approach entails reinforcing its counter-terrorism capacities and reactivating the counter-terrorist task force and ensuring that the member states’ law enforcement authorities arm Europol with all relevant criminal intelligence pertaining to terrorism, as soon as they are available.
Following the eventful Spring European Council, various ideas have been floated to give an impetus to intelligence-sharing across the EU. Some of them have already been translated into measures. Austria and Belgium have introduced the idea of a ‘European CIA’, which if implemented can be a potent weapon in early identification of terrorist threats. However, France and the UK are reluctant about sharing sensitive intelligence with all member states. France has suggested deeper intelligence-sharing between the five largest member states, also known as G5—France, Germany, UK, Spain and Italy—which also have the largest intelligence services.
The European Union has partnered with the US to combat international terrorism. One of them entails adopting new measures to strengthen the security of cargo containers moving through sea ports. This would prevent or at least impede their exploitation for furthering terrorism.
India and the European Union have common grounds regarding countering international terrorism. The EU had not only condemned the attack on the Indian Parliament in the recent past but also pledged its support to India’s fight against terrorism. Both parties adopted a joint declaration against international terrorism at their second summit held in New Delhi in November 2001. In its declaration against international terrorism, both sides agreed that terrorism is devoid of religious, ethnic, ideological and all other justifications, and both have lent their support to the adoption on the basis of international law of decisive measures against all states, individuals and entities, which render support, harbour, finance, instigate or train terrorists or promote terrorism.
Besides that, in the joint declaration it was affirmed that “it is necessary that all states cooperate through all lawful means to prevent and suppress the financing of acts of terrorism in their territories.” The joint declaration also welcomed the UN SCR 1373, which provides a comprehensive framework for countering terrorism on an international scale, and expressed their commitment to implement the resolution in its totality.
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