Oldrich Bures

EU Counterterrorism Policy: A Paper Tiger?

ABSTRACT Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, the European Union has acted on several fronts to reinforce its existing and nascent capabilities to combat terrorism. The European Council adopted a comprehensive Plan of Action and reached political agreement on a number of important counterterrorism initiatives, including the introduction of a European Arrest Warrant; strengthening of Europol and Eurojust; the drafting of a common EU definition of terrorism; and freezing of terrorist finances. This article provides a critical analysis of all these measures and reveals that the EU counterterrorism policy suffers from an implementation deficit, in large part due to the absence of genuine pro-integration thinking in the area of Justice and Home Affairs. The March 11, 2004 terrorist attacks in Madrid provided fresh impetus for enhancing the EU counterterrorism capabilities but a multitude of political, legal, and cultural challenges still need to be overcome in order to make the EU counterterrorism policy less of a paper tiger and more of an effective counterterrorism device.

Private military companies: A second best peacekeeping option?

This article analyses the perils and benefits of outsourcing UN peacekeeping to private military companies (PMCs). Various PMCs have a proven capacity to perform at least some peacekeeping functions. Although experts have expressed serious doubts whether their capacity to do peacekeeping will always translate into the achievement of peace and security, the author contends that PMC peacekeeping should not be dismissed on ideological or moral grounds when the choice is either a PMC operation or none at all. It is, however, imperative that the perils of using PMCs are addressed before peacekeeping is turned over to the private market. In particular, a set of clear mechanisms of accountability, control and transparency of the PMCs needs to be put in place.

Europol's Fledgling Counterterrorism Role

This article offers an analysis of Europols counterterrorism role. Based on official EU documents, internal reports, and secondary sources, it dissects the contemporary counterterrorism activities of both Europol and the informal arrangements outside of the EU structure that are frequently utilized by some EU Member States. Although Europol does not perform any indispensable counterterrorism functions at the moment due to its limited powers and lack of trust from national agencies, the author contends that Europol has the potential to make a substantial contribution to the fight against terrorism.

A Decade of EU Counter-Terrorism and Intelligence: A Critical Assessment

The Treaty on the European Union (EU) stipulates that one of the key objectives of the Union is to provide citizens with a high level of safety within an Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ). Given that the fight against terrorism is a prominent aspect of this general objective, it is remarkable that, in spite of its political relevance and decade-long history, it has only relatively recently received due attention in the academic community. At the time of writing, only a handful of post-9/11 edited volumes and special issues

Informal counterterrorism arrangements in Europe: Beauty by variety or duplicity by abundance?

Most existing analyses of counterterrorism cooperation among EU Member States have focused on the formal EU agencies and institutions, which may be regarded as direct vertical extensions of political and executive power in the EU Member States. When it comes to practical cooperation, however, it appears that national security agencies in Europe often prefer to utilize horizontal non-EU counterterrorism arrangements. Because of their flexibility and relative independence from national governments, as well as their ability to include a broader range of participants on equal footing, it is generally assumed that these informal arrangements are more suitable for achieving common goals than their more formal and hierarchical EU counterparts. This article argues that the informal non-EU arrangements also suffer from a number of distinct shortcomings. This, in turn, questions the wisdom of the post-9/11 response to terrorism by putting yet more formal EU bodies and/or informal arrangements on the already crowded map of security bodies in Europe.

EU's Fight Against Terrorist Finances: Internal Shortcomings and Unsuitable External Models

This article offers an analysis of the European Unions (EU) efforts in the fight against terrorist finances. Following the 9/11 attacks, the EU has adopted the relevant United Nations counterterrorism resolutions as well as the special recommendations of Financial Action Task Force. In addition, the EU has developed its own measures spanning across all of its three pillars. There is, however, a cause for concern that some of these measures have not been properly implemented, while others have been criticized on legal, transparency, legitimacy, and efficiency grounds. These shortcomings are not only due to EUs own internal obstacles, but also result from the EUs uncritical adoption of the prevailing smart sanctions and money-laundering regimes, which are based on a number of unwarranted assumptions that do not reflect the nature of contemporary terrorist threats in Europe.

Private Actors in the Fight Against Terrorist Financing: Efficiency Versus Effectiveness

In several areas of the post-9/11 efforts to fight terrorism, private rather than public entities have shouldered the bulk of the burden. This has been especially the case in the fight against terrorist financing where private financial institution are legally obliged to monitor the billions of daily financial transactions and report the suspicious ones to public authorities for further investigation. Since private financial institutions are geared toward making profits and where the money has come from has traditionally not been of great interest to them, it is important to investigate how they have coped with these demanding requirements.

The European Union Counter-terrorism Coordinator and the External Dimension of the European Union Counter-terrorism Policy

Abstract The post of European Union (EU) counter-terrorism coordinator (CTC) has often been seen as ineffectual. However, this article argues that such a critical assessment of the post of EU CTC is due to a significant extent to an over-emphasis on the internal dimension of the EU CTCs activities. Consequently, it suggests focusing on the external dimension of the EU CTCs work, which has often been largely overlooked. For that purpose, it develops an international actorness analytical framework. On that basis, the article demonstrates that, despite the limitations inherent to this post, the EU CTC is already significantly advanced in the process of establishing himself as a fully-fledged counter-terrorism actor on the international stage. Evidence shows that he is increasingly considered an important component of the external dimension of the EU counter-terrorism policy by both member states and third states and bodies.

Ten Years of EU's Fight against Terrorist Financing: A Critical Assessment

This article offers a critical assessment of the post-9/11 efforts of the European Union (EU) in the fight against terrorist finances. Using the EUs own goals from its action plans and counterterrorism strategies as the baseline criteria, it examines how successful the EU has been in implementing the relevant aspects of various United Nations Security Council counterterrorism resolutions, the special recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force, and its own measures spanning across all of its three pre-Lisbon pillars. In particular, the article seeks to answer the following questions: (1) What and how much of its own counter-terrorism plans has the EU managed to achieve since 9/11? and (2) What lessons can be learned from the hitherto successes and failures for future EU efforts to counter terrorist financing? Special attention is paid to the thus far neglected role of the private sector in the fight against terrorist financing.

EU’s Response to Foreign Fighters: New Threat, Old Challenges?

ABSTRACT The conflicts in Syria and Iraq have put foreign fighters—individuals travelling from other countries to engage in these conflicts—high on the security agenda at both the national and EU level. Drawing on theoretical arguments previously advanced to explain the haphazard evolution of the EU’s counterterrorism efforts after September 11, 2011, this articles discusses the emergence and persistence of key challenges that have hampered the EU response to security threats posed by 5,000 European foreign fighters between 2013 and early 2017. These include the absence of a common EU-level definition; the differences regarding the scope and perceptions of the threats posed to individual Member States; the lack of consensus on root causes of terrorism and radicalization; and the differences among Member States when it comes to addressing the difficulties of criminal prosecution of foreign fighters.