Solicitar al Consejo Permanente que informe a la Asamblea General, en su cuadragésimo segundo período ordinario de sesiones, sobre la implementación

KEY FINDINGS

 The EU policy architecture in the way it is organised at the moment does not include

a regular centralised update on the threats the EU and its Member States are dealing with, and the way threat assessments have implications for the various policies in place. Both Europol and INTCEN are dealing with threat assessments, but not in an integrated manner, and lacking the regularity needed to meet the constantly changing threats, and lacking the general public outreach to inform multiple stakeholders at the same time.

 The counter-terrorism agenda primarily reflects the security concerns of Western

and Northern European Member States around jihadism. Threat perceptions and counter-terrorist ‘legacies’ in Central and Eastern European Member States might be different. Moreover, the potential for political violence does not solely rest with jihadists as the attack by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway in 2011 showed.

 The highly dynamic environment and asymmetric counter-terrorism strategy

development require a policy architecture that allows policymakers to – collaboratively – respond fast to today’s challenges, while taking sufficient time to prepare for the evolution that takes place in society to be able to meet tomorrow’s challenges equally well. From the perspective of the latter, ensuring long-term counter-terrorism capacity and capabilities on all levels, and conducting strategically vital research on which measures are most effective, are some key elements the EU can contribute to.

 The EU’s counter-terrorism policy architecture would benefit from making both its

objectives and its underlying assumptions more explicit. In fact, the EU has been 'widening the net' of counter-terrorism, by criminalising preparatory acts in the context of the new EU Directive on Countering Terrorism. This is considered ineffective by the experts that have been consulted for this evaluative study.

 Counter-terrorism measures can have higher legitimacy - and therefore overall

effectiveness - if critical human rights organisations are involved in the policy- making phase, rather than making measures vulnerable to their criticism after implementation. Because of the risk of harming human rights, better oversight is justified. This could be achieved for instance through a modified mandate of the Fundamental Rights Agency, the European Parliament (‘s LIBE committee) or through an independent reviewer comparable to the one in the UK.

 One of the recurring issues amongst practitioners and experts alike is the apparent

lack of trust between services within and between Member States, accompanied by complex legal boundaries that hinder effective sharing of information. Particularly, the Commission's upon the Member States to “facilitate an information exchange hub based on the interaction between the law enforcement community and the intelligence community, within the framework of the CTG and the ECTC, in accordance with relevant EU and national rules and arrangements” (COM(2016) 602 final) is one the findings of this study would support.

The analysis in the previous chapters brought to the front the tendency of the EU to mainly act in response to a specific crisis, as opposed to policy design that follows from careful analysis of trend developments, needs assessment to address a certain issue, evidence- gathering on the specifics of that issue, and the expected results of certain policies, etcetera. Figure 12 on the next page lays out the timeline and the various strategies, policies and measures that have been adopted on the general aspect of counter-terrorism, but also on the various specific themes, as well as the EU bodies and platforms that have been set up. The timeline depicts a tendency to a reversed policy cycle, showing that right after the occurrence of terrorist attacks there is an influx in the adoption of measures and the establishment of EU bodies and platforms (see also figure 2 in chapter 3). No time is taken to conduct a needs assessment or impact assessment of potential new measures. This is only later followed by the formulation of general policy ambitions, the adoption of strategies, and action plans. At best, the development of strategies and the adoption of measures take place simultaneously. Many of the interviewees acknowledge this phenomenon, but also point to the fact that often counter-terrorism measures and policies were already waiting on the shelf for the window of opportunity that would generate the political willingness to (finally) adopt certain measures due to a (renewed) sense of urgency right after serious incidents, where political support was lacking before.

This study’s analysis does show that the field of counter-terrorism is a composite field that has grown in an incremental and -in times- ad hoc manner, which furthermore represents a very crowded market place of various actors and stakeholders without clear strategic guidance to manage policies with long-term implications. The constantly changing security environment meanwhile does call for both a long term vision, and a flexibility to respond quickly to new developments which poses difficult and – in times – opposing challenges particularly to an organisation as complex as the EU.

Figure 12: Timeline of terrorist attacks and counter-terrorism strategies and measures, 2000-2016

Source: PwC and ICCT. Legend:

Attacks Data Exchange Financial

Border Justice General

In this chapter, various observations are made that followed from this study’s research and were discussed during the interviews and the expert policy lab, and that relate to some of these particular challenges to stay relevant, coherent, legitimate, and henceforth effective as an actor in the field. First, the lack of an institutionalised practice to make regular trend analysis of specific threats in order to keep up with the changing security landscape will be touched upon (section 5.1). Furthermore, observations are made in relation to the focus of the EU with regard to the threat of terrorism, which seems to be biased to the priority threat perception of mostly Western European countries (section 5.2). Clearly, the dynamic of policy making in this constantly changing security environment brings along specific challenges, which are next touched upon in the section on fast versus slow track policy (section 5.3). In the following section, the importance of clear policy objective formulation and the need for evidence-based underlying assumptions when designing and adopting new policies and measures is elaborated upon, as one of the main outcomes of the expert policy lab which was part of the input used for the analysis of this study (section 5.4). This is followed by a section on the need to clear oversight on policies, which also came out as one of the main recommendations from the expert policy lab (section 5.5). Finally, and since this is considered a very important issue also in the eyes of the general public, there is a specific focus on the need for better information exchange (section 5.6).

5.1.

Institutionalising long-term future foresight or connecting

threat assessment to policy design

As mentioned in the chapter on the theoretical framework, this study intends to make policy recommendations to enhance the coherence and the relevance of the EU policy architecture with the aim to improve its effectiveness. In addition, and with an eye on improving the policy circle dynamic of policy design as well as of the current policy architecture, this study also takes into account the conclusions of chapter 4 that the EU counter-terrorism policy is mainly incident driven, and the fact that policy design is not automatically driven by regular and institutionalised threat assessment or future foresight studies.

However, assessing the threats and possible future developments is not something that should be ignored. In fact, according to article 222, paragraph 4 of the TFEU: “The European Council shall regularly assess the threats facing the Union in order to enable the Union and its Member States to take effective action.” The terrorist threats that the EU is currently dealing with both have an internal and external origin, and both an internal and external impact. These threats, as well as the radicalisation processes to violent extremism of individuals, are very complex and constantly changing and changing even more rapidly nowadays than was the case some years ago. Furthermore, the (perceptions on the) threats differ among the different regions of the EU (see section 5.2). This makes it highly important to constantly check whether the assessment of the threats is up to date and the policies in place adequate to face those threats.

Furthermore, and in order to stay ahead of the curve, long-term foresight studies are needed, to analyse the long-term trends, and to assess the likelihood that a certain trend continues into the future, whether it increases or decreases, or whether strategic shocks can be expected to drastically change the course of a certain trend. Based on both quantitative data and qualitative expert assessments, an inventory of the main influencing factors on the insecurities of the future can also be made, which provides input for future scenario planning, and can inform the policy planners on the specific issues that need to be addressed in order to contain the future threats. This kind of analysis can be done for the overall threat, but can also be informed by analysis on more specific themes.

An example can be found in the area of weapons and explosives. Currently, many of the weapons and explosives used in terrorist attacks in the EU origin from the Balkan, and are clear remnants of the abundant availability during the Yugoslav war. Current policy- makers, aware of this problem, are currently concentrating on getting a better control over the trafficking of these weapons and explosives, but are not (yet) necessarily analysing what the next hub of this form of trafficking might be. One scenario that might be worth considering, in this respect, is the increasing tensions on the Eastern border of the EU, and the continued activities of militant forces in Ukraine, and what those developments might mean in relation to weapons and explosives trafficking. Another example follows from the fact that while the EU is still developing policies to stop foreign fighters from travelling to conflict zones, the next urgent problem the EU will be facing is the steep increase in returnees that might pose a serious security risk to the Member States of the EU. In his latest update on the implementation of the counter-terrorism agenda the EU CTC henceforth stated: “The EU should as soon as possible define a common approach with regard to foreign terrorist fighter returnees.”150 _{And that concluded all there could be said} on the topic so far.

Looking at good practices in Member States, this study found that the Netherlands National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism (Nationaal Coordinator Terrorismebestrijding en Veiligheid, NCTV) issues a quarterly threat assessment report on terrorism, radicalisation and polarisation in society. This report consists of a (shorter) public part and a classified (longer) version, updating relevant stakeholders on the current threat level, and the current threats and policy concerns. In addition, the Netherlands Ministry of Security and Justice, the Netherlands Ministry of Defence and the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs commission future foresight studies of various risks and threats to society with several renowned think tanks on international relations and security studies.

The EU policy architecture in the way it is organised at the moment, however, does not foresee in a regular centralised update on the threats the EU and its Member States are dealing with, and the way threat assessments have implications for the various policies in place.

Currently, once year Europol issues a public report (EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report (TE-SAT)) on the terrorist attacks that failed, foiled and actually took place in the EU, the number of casualties, the number of arrests etcetera. In addition, Europol identifies the key terrorist trends. These reports are considered “useful but (…) they are essentially compilations from state-provided data and there is no attempt to assess the threat posed by terrorism in them.”151 _{On exceptional occasions, Europol also issues specific public} reports, like the recent one on the changes in the modus operandi of IS.152 _{In addition,} European Union Intelligence and Situation Centre (EU INTCEN), which functions as the exclusive civilian intelligence capability of the EU, provides non-public information to the EU High Representative/Vice-President, the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the Member States for the purpose of informing the EU decision-making bodies in the fields of Common Security and Foreign/Defence Policy (CSFP/CSDP) and counter-terrorism. The focus of this source of information is mainly on the external threat. As far as INTCEN informs policy makers, the focus of the information is very targeted and not to provide an overall threat assessment and appreciation of the policies already in place and their

150 _{Council of the European Union, EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, Implementation of the counter-terrorism} agenda set by the European Council (14260/16 EXT 1), 20 December 2016, paragraph 25.

adequacy to the problem. Since this kind of information is furthermore not publicly available, it can also not be used by other bodies or policy makers that are mandated to cover other policy areas.

In the April 2015 European Agenda on Security, it was pointed out that the Standing Committee on Operational Cooperation on Internal Security (COSI) plays a central role in the way Member States can coordinate the common priorities and operation actions through the ‘EU Policy Cycle for serious and organised crime’.153 _{The Policy Cycle should} provide a “methodology for an intelligence-led approach to internal security, based on joint threat assessments coordinated within Europol.”154 _{However, so far, both Europol and} INTCEN are dealing with threat assessments, but not in an integrated manner, and lacking the regularity needed to meet the constantly changing threats, and lacking the general public outreach to inform multiple stakeholders at the same time. In order to provide for this need and to cover this lacuna, the EU CTC, to the best of his capacities, tries to provide summaries of the changes in threat assessments and makes an effort to communicate these to relevant parties. These briefings, however, lack the analytical information to back up the assessments. They are moreover not made available for all relevant stakeholders, and they can certainly not provide the input for future foresight analysis that is relevant for future policy design in order to stay ahead of the curve.

One of this study’s observations is therefore that a proper threat assessment system and an institutionalised system to conduct future foresight studies are lacking, that would help avoid policy design that is mainly crisis-driven, and would help improve the overall policy cycle dynamic. It would therefore be recommended that with the coming into being of the Security Union, this point of a more integrated threat assessment will be further developed.

5.2.

EU counter-terrorism and differentiated Member State

priorities

The counter-terrorism agenda primarily reflects the security concerns of Western and Northern European Member States around jihadism. The key moments after which counter- terrorist policies have been designed at the EU level have involved attacks linked to what is known as jihadism – the 2001 attacks in the United States, the 2004 attacks in Madrid and the 2005 attack in London. The recent policy output took place in response to the 2015 attacks in Paris and Brussels in 2016. These attacks have taken place in Western and Southern European Member States, but the threat perceptions and counter-terrorist ‘legacies’ in Central and Eastern European Member States might be different.155 _Moreover, the potential for political violence does not solely rest with jihadists as the attack by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway in 2011 showed.

The concern about foreign fighters, a prominent part of the EU’s counter-terrorism agenda, offers a case in point. Numbers compiled by ICCT show a stark contrast between, on the one hand, Member States like France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands,