The EU has been forced to review and update its 2020-2025 Security Strategy thanks to the challenges posed by crimes including jihadist terrorism, drug trafficking, and organized crime across the bloc.
El Debate reports that since 2020 the European Public Prosecutor’s Office has investigated more than 2,000 criminal cases that affect more than one member state of the European Union.
In a statement, Margaritis Schinas, Commission vice president for “Promoting Our European Way of Life,” gave himself high marks, but called for even further integration of security services.
“At the beginning of this mandate, we committed to breaking down silos and vowed to create a security ecosystem that spans the entire breadth of European society. Four years after the adoption of the Security Union Strategy 2020-2025 and we’ve done just that: the EU is now stronger and better equipped to tackle security threats than ever before,” he said. “With a continuously evolving security threat landscape in and around Europe, the adaptability of our security framework will remain key to success.”
Schinas pointed out that criminals aim for no less than striking the European Union at its heart. He recalled the attacks at the Maelbeek metro station in Brussels in 2016, the closest metro station to the headquarters of the EU’s institutions. Since then the bloc has adopted the Cybersecurity Resilience law and Cyber Solidarity rules to build and coordinate the technology that can help detect and prevent such attacks.
He went on to specify that the EU needed to continue to pay closer attention to all forms of jihadist threats, citing the attack in Nice in 2016 that killed 86 people when a man drove a truck through a crowded area of the city. Schinas called on the bloc to continue to fight against all manifestations of jihadism in all its forms, beginning with the prevention of radicalization through both online and offline influences and including monitoring access to weapons and financing of terrorism
Under the current plan, he noted, the bloc had created the Terrorist Content Online Regulation to mandate that platforms to remove terrorist content within one hour, limited purchases of materials that can be used to make DIY explosives, and allocated over €30 million in funding from the Internal Security Fund since 2020 to protect public spaces. He also praised the EU for strengthening rules that address money laundering and funding of terror, though these have included measures that severely limit the use of cash by law-abiding citizens.
He also stressed that EU member states needed to continue to strengthen their coordination and information sharing with non-EU countries from where illegal drugs are brought into the bloc. The rise of drug trafficking and organized crime have gone hand in hand in Europe but the drug trafficking starts outside the EU, where most drugs are produced and brought from. He cited specifically the need to coordinate with South American countries, as nearly all the cocaine consumed globally comes from the region.
