Page 33 - Cyber Terrorism and Extremism as Threat to Critical Infrastructure Protection

DENIS ČALETA, SARA PERKOVIĆ: EXTREMISM AND RADICALIZATION IN THE EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENT – SECURITY CHALLENGES
OF RETURN FOREIGN FIGHTERS

importance of this question is related to the fact that terrorism knows no boundaries, and this
is especially highlighted here in the EU, where one of the most important values is the free
movement of goods and people.

Ten years ago we might have said that “every member of the EU is solving the problem of
terrorism in its own way, more or less successfully” (Prodan, 2009, p 11): so, the “Italian
government introduced extensive additional legal powers to help to fight terrorism in the
mid-seventies” (Wilkinson, 2002, p 113), while the German authorities were doing something
else, and the French had their own system against terrorism. However, Prodan (Ibid., p 15)
stated that there is no complete and effective common security and defence politics. The EU
considers that Member States are responsible for all the challenges around the fight against
radicalism and recruitment, but the EU can help with a certain framework to coordinate na-
tional politics, share information, and be successful in fighting against terrorism. This is how
the EU thinks that fighting together can be most successful and is why it began to react with
a common foreign policy so that it can protect European citizens. In 2001 the “EU adopted
an Action Plan to Fight against Terrorism. Improvement in cooperation in the segment of ar-
rests and extradition of terrorists has been accomplished by the Council Framework Decision
2002/584/JHA, by which the EU adopted the European arrest warrant” (Ibid., p 13). This Act
was supposed to represent the main document of the EU on fighting terrorism.

A few years later, in 2004, the EU adopted a Declaration on Combating Terrorism, and soon
afterwards an Action Plan for Fighting Terrorism. As Prodan mentions (2009, p 13), the goals
of this plan were “to disable terrorists from having access to financial and other economic re-
sources; to increase the efficiency of the working bodies of the EU and Member States when
searching for terrorists, their prosecution in court, and when preventing terrorist attacks; to
deepen international consensus and strengthen international participation in fighting against
terrorism; to secure the safety of international traffic and the effective surveillance system of
the outer borders, to increase the effectiveness of preventing terrorist attacks.” In 2005 the
Council adopted the EU Counter-Terrorism Strategy, which has four pillars (prevent, protect,
pursue, respond).

As mentioned above, terrorism does not know borders, and this is certainly true in the case
of the EU, because of the desire of the Union to have open borders. But apart from the afore-
mentioned surveillance of external borders, an important aid in their maintenance has been
the Schengen Information System (SIS). Since 2016 this system has carried “terrorism-related
activity” information. Besides this, the SIS has begun to use “Stronger and Smarter Informa-
tion Systems for Borders and Security” technology, which utilizes photos of people’s faces.
Following the last large migration wave, many people began to talk about open borders being
death to European security, and because of this, some of the Schengen countries have insti-
gated border controls. To preserve border safety, the EU has developed Frontex, the European
Border and Coast Guard Agency. Frontex is necessary to secure the borders of the EU and was
of great assistance during the migration crisis. The numbers of people crossing the borders
and coming to Europe are changing every year. “Every attempt to quantify the number of
migrants can give only a momentary and shaky figure that can be outdated after several days.
According to the European Frontex agency, there are six main migrant routes: Western Afri-
can, Western Mediterranean, Central Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean, Western Balkan,
and Eastern land route” (Kešetović and Ninković, 2016, p 101). Frontex’s main function is to
oversee the borders, and with Regulation No. 2016/1624, it will be able to use all the preven-
tion measures and detection of terrorism that are required.

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