BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th November, 2020) The home affairs ministers of EU member states on Friday held a video conference to discuss the fight against terrorism, as well as different aspects of the bloc's policy on migration and asylum in the wake of a series of deadly terrorist attacks in France and Austria in October and November.
The meeting took place on a symbolic day, November 13. On this day in 2015, nine members of the Islamic State terrorist group (ISIS, also known as IS, banned in Russia) killed 131 people in Paris and injured 413 more in an attack. Earlier that year, on January 7, the office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris was attacked by terrorists, who killed 12 workers for depicting prophet Mohamed in caricatures.
Since then, the number of terror victims multiplied. In November alone, a series of gun attacks hit Vienna left four people killed and 22 others injured, while several people were brutally killed in Paris, Nice and Lyon in October. These attacks are bloody reminders of the inefficiency of the European response to the Islamist threat and the danger it represents for Western democracies.
EU FINALLY ADDRESSING THE ISSUE
The meeting of the EU ministers of home affairs was held on Friday at the request of French President Emmanuel Macron, who pledged to boost anti-terrorism measures following several attacks in France.
It is the French leader who called Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz the day after the Islamist attack in Vienna on November 2 to discuss the so-called anti-terrorist pact, which the two politicians planned to propose to the rest of Europe. Another summit with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was hastily organized by the French president under the auspices of the European Council on Tuesday and also focused on the latest attacks in France and Austria. During the meeting, the participants decided to discuss the issue at the level of interior ministers on Friday.
Apart from security following the recent attacks in France and Austria, the agenda of the EU home affairs ministers' summit included another, more unexpected topic � the contentious new pact on migration in Europe � as the EU officially linked the rise of terrorism with the migration crisis that the bloc has been totally unable to settle since 2015. The recent attacks in France were staged by migrants.
The issue of migration has been a stumbling block in EU talks for years. But it became particularly acute in 2015, when Merkel single-handedly decided to open the borders of Germany to refugees from war-hit Syria. By doing this, the chancellor opened the floodgates to economic migrants from as far as Pakistan and sub-Saharan Africa. In 2015 alone, according to the official Eurostat figures, 1,322,895 migrants and refugees entered the EU and applied for asylum. That is only the documented arrivals, but there are many more who did not ask for asylum, feeding the black market and illegal traffics. Estimates put the total arrivals, including those who entered under the radar, at a minimum of 1,650,000.
This paved way for illegal migration from Turkey to Greece via the Aegean Sea and then the Balkans, through the Mediterranean Sea and Italy and more recently via Spain after crossing the strait of Gibraltar with fast boats. In 2019, the official number of asylum applicants amounted to 744,810 and has been steady at around 700,000 for the last few years, except for 2020, when coronavirus-related lockdowns put a temporary brake on illegal migration.
For years, European leaders denied any link between terrorist attacks and immigration. In particular, Germany, where Merkel has become much less popular over her migration policy, mostly presented killers with a knife and shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) as psychologically-deranged people, not terrorists.
The attitude is the same in France, where the administrations of ex-President Francois Hollande and Emmanuel Macron refuse the "amalgamation" of migration and terrorism, or terrorism and Islam. Immigration is one of the last taboos of French political life. On November 5, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, a little embarrassed by the fact that the latest terrorist acts were committed by recently arrived migrants, still told the Europe 1 radio broadcaster that though borders control and police forces would be strengthened, he did not make any connection between immigration and terrorism.
However, later on the same day, Macron changed his discourse for the first time and said the contrary to what the minister had said earlier. Affirming his desire to revise the Schengen agreement and to strengthen the police presence at the borders, he expressed determination "to fight illegal immigration and trafficking networks which are increasingly linked to terrorist networks."
"We clearly see terrorist actions that can be carried out by people who use migratory flows to threaten our national soil. So we need to strengthen our controls for reasons of national security. Before changing the law, it must be fully implemented. This does not mean changing the law but increasing the means we put into it. I call for a re-founding of Schengen and greater control. I want to be precise so as not to confuse everything. These subjects arouse a lot of passions and this leads to amalgamations," Macron said.
The French leader's reasoning still means that nothing much will be done.
At the summit on Tuesday, Macron went even further saying that the EU had to "look lucidly at the realities." And the reality is that there are links between migration and terrorism.
"Schengen consisted of two parts: the removal of frontiers in the area, but also the maintenance of this security area, with a promise of protection, and this promise has not been kept. We must strengthen the external borders and renew the governance of this space. This is why I proposed to create an Internal Security Council. We must organize the European response," the president added.
Macron clarified his vision later at a press conference, saying that he recognizes the reality of the illegal immigration problem. The president pointed to a misuse of the right of asylum in Europe, which was created to protect and welcome those who have taken a risk for democracy in their country. But in fact, migrants arrive from countries that are not at war, brought in by illegal smugglers.
Meanwhile, Kurz and Rutte were more clear on the issue, saying that the EU needed to efficiently protect its external borders to keep the Schengen system alive.
Merkel, in turn, asked not to make a confusion, adding that this is not combat between islam and Christianity but Europe's way to defend its democratic society and respond to these "enemies of the European liberal society." The chancellor noted that it had nothing to do with religious beliefs.
"We need to put to work what has already been decided; the finalizing of the Schengen zone should be done in 2022 and the knowledge of everybody going in and out of the zone without a visa, that should become reality in 2023," Merkel said, adding that she wants to accelerate that move and improve the Schengen zone, which obliquely restricts immigration.
Commenting on Friday's meeting, Jordan Bardella, a French member of the European Parliament, said that Austria's response to the recent attacks is more clear than that of France.
"Social assistance to the families of terrorists cut, deprivation of citizenship, further detention of jihadists once the sentence has been served ... The Austrian response after the Vienna attack is clear. It is something other else than the [French] 'charter of secularism,'" Bardella wrote on Twitter.
In an interview to the French newspaper Le Figaro on Friday, Bernard Emie and Nicolas Lerner, the heads of external and internal security service in France, said that the country's intelligence services had foiled many attacks � the authorities have succeeded in thwarting 19 attacks and annihilating 61 projects of attacks over the past seven years. The officials added that since 2015, France has been struck by 20 terrorist attacks.
"The virus is ideological: it is conquering, bellicose, totalitarian Islam, which is called Islamism. It is launching makeshift jihadists all over the world," the officials said.
According to them, one of the main causes of the terrorist threat in France is the failure of integration, with anarchic immigration only reinforcing this crisis.
"The clandestine networks open our country to the executioners. Borders are to the Islamist threat what masks are to COVID-19. A rampart that will never be absolutely hermetic, but without which catastrophe is inevitable," the officials added.
Former French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who was in office at the time of the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, in turn, has recently called asylum a fundamental right, adding that it is an honor for France to welcome those fleeing dictatorships and torture. At the same time, the politician noted that for asylum to be effective, the rejected applicants must be expelled promptly.
"We have to be much more efficient, otherwise, we will kill the right to asylum ... We are facing additional immigration through family reunification, the refugee crisis or illegal immigration, when our model of integration is already strained. It is obvious that we need to be much stronger in terms of controlling our borders," Valls said.
The ex-prime minister recalled that he expressed doubts about the decision of Angela Merkel and other European leaders to open the borders massively during the 2015 refugee crisis.
"It was because I feared the consequences of uncontrolled immigration and a failed integration in countries marked by the crisis and where the extreme right were gaining strength. Europe really needs to be able to protect its external borders with all the necessary means. If it is a strainer, it is the European project that will continue to crack. That is why we need a real Schengen overhaul," the politician added.
The meeting of the EU ministers on Friday was held under the presidency of German Interior Horst Seehofer, who is supposed to be a "hawk" on the fight against terrorism and illegal migration. The other host was European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson, who is in charge of the thorny issue of controlling migration to the EU.
At the final press conference, Seehofer listed the areas of action, from the internet to improved control of borders, exchange of information between member states or firearms control.
"We are not fighting against religion but against violent extremism of any kind. The work done in the previous years has already laid good foundations for the future. We now must put it in practice," the minister said.
According to the official, borders controls are not functioning perfectly, therefore the EU should optimize protection at the borders. As for the internet terrorist content and the bloc's plan to eradicate it within an hour, the minister said that the relevant negotiations with the European Parliament were ongoing.
"It is not easy and the negotiations are on-going but we appeal to the parliament to try to complete it by Christmas," Seehofer added.
Johansson, in turn, also told reporters that external borders control needed some improvement, as about 22 percent of people crossing the border into the Schengen area are not checked. In addition, the commissioner noted the importance of Europol's stronger mandate, as prison-leavers should be followed up.
Commenting on the EU's intention to toughen position on terrorism, Claude Moniquet, a former agent of the French General Directorate for External Security and head of the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center, told Sputnik that the number of recent immigrants among terrorists in Europe must be put into perspective, as most of attackers are 'local terrorists," who came to Europe a long time ago or are even converts. In particular, in the 2015 Bataclan attack in Paris, there were two recent arrivals, while eight others were third generation migrants.
"For migrants, the task of the police is colossal. it is very difficult to identify dangerous individuals: if their story is credible, it is often impossible to verify. If they are political refugees, the government of their country will not confirm their claims! Another big difficulty is the deportation of those who are refused asylum. Some are not deportable, they would risk being massacred upon return. Others simply have no papers and refuse to say where they are from. Impossible to expel them. If you add the countless appeals brought for them by leftist NGOs and lawyers, they are in Europe to stay," Moniquet said.
The official went on saying that the French authorities had just freed several Algerians who committed bloody attacks in the 1990s and now must be monitored at all times. And the state must spend enormous human and financial resources for this purpose. But now, the authorities do not know what to do with them, as returning them to Algeria is guaranteed torture, he added.
"When the police round up people in hiding, they are released the same week, often on the pretext that 'there is no plane available for repatriation.' I remember the control of Albanian prostitutes, Avenue Louise in Brussels, and the only paper they had, was their OQT [order to leave the territory], expired three years ago," Moniquet said.
The official believes that the security services could have prevented the attacks of November 13, 2015, as a group of attackers was behind them, not separate individuals, and there were messages that could have been intercepted.
"If we wanted to expel the thousands of 'S-files,' the dangerous Islamists, from France tomorrow, the constitution would have to be modified, which implies a special majority in parliament. You cannot find a majority to expel families with children, you will not find a majority for that. It is true that a form of super-rapid eviction with limited appeal for isolated individuals can already clean up the landscape. All this indicates that the EU is still very far from clear and effective common legislation on security and migration, or from financing correctly the huge security tasks to be fulfilled, by police, border guards, immigration services, social services and many others," Moniquet said.
The official noted that Macron with his new law against Islamist separatism was the first president to tackle the problem, therefore, he has a right to have doubts.
