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EU: SCHENGEN, SECURITY AND COUNTER-TERRORISM: Ongoing developments
11 January 2016
"Before putting the area of freedom, security and justice on trial – as some politicians have done – it is certainly important to objectively examine the manner in which the workings of this beast have been confronted by the reality of terrorism. Whether it has to do with controls carried out at borders (Section 1 of this article), or cooperation between national police forces (Section 2), it must be noted that the primary responsibility in this case does not rest with the mechanisms created by the European Union. In contrast, the failure to prevent the rather predictable attacks now creates the question of sharing intelligence between the competent national intelligence agencies, a matter which does not fall within the Union’s competences (Section 3)." See:
The Paris Terrorist Attacks : Failure of the EU’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice? (ELSJ, link):
And: recent Council documents on counter-terrorism plans in the EU and in the 'Western Balkans' (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey, Kosovo):
Council of the EU: Counter-Terrorism Coordinator: Report: state of play on the implementation of the statement of the Members of the European Council of 12 February 2015 on counter-terrorism (14734/15, 30 November 2015, pdf): information on border controls ("controls have to be increased to 100%"); information sharing; firearms; PNR; internet ("Member States and the industry should improve the focus on identifying and removing extremist content"); promoting European values and human rights; radicalisation ("explore closer cooperation between different areas" such as "education, culture, sports, employment, welfare, security"); aviation security.
Council of the EU: EU Western Balkan counter-terrorism initative: integrative plan of action (13887/15, 4 December 2015, pdf): highly detailed overview of plans, proposals and actions to strengthen counter-terrorism work and operations in the Western Balkans. The initiative is led by the "informal Working Group on the Western Balkan Counter-Terrorism Initiative (WBCTi) is composed of 17 Member States [Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Slovenia] and supported by the Commission, the European External Action Service (EEAS), Europol, the EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator and the Presidency of the Council of the EU."