Calls are growing across Europe for tightening of border controls and wider security measures in the aftermath of the latest terrorist attack in Germany. With the incident capping off a year of high profile atrocities across the continent, security issues will be a dominant political theme in European politics in 2017, especially with key elections in France and Germany which have borne much of the brunt of this year’s attacks.
The increasing demands for tighter border controls, with much of Europe still on high security alert, follow the revelations that the presumed perpetrator of the German attack, 24-year-old Tunisian Anis Amri, travelled more than 500 miles, to Italy via France, after committing his atrocity. This is despite the fact that he was the target of an intensive manhunt as Europe’s most wanted criminal at the time.
At this stage, it remains unclear whether Amri received substantive outside help with his attack. His professed affiliations to the so-called Islamic State terrorist group, which were revealed in a video of him pledging allegiance to the group released after the attack, are still being probed.
Core security issues aside, the reason why the border control issue is so politically charged is that Euroskeptic parties are championing this agenda, from the United Kingdom, to France, and The Netherlands to Germany. For instance, French far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen, and former leader of the UK Independence Party Nigel Farage -- the self-styled “Mr Brexit” and confidante of US president-elect Donald Trump -- have demanded Brussels ends the Schengen agreement which permits passport-free travel across most continental EU states, except for newer members Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia.
Especially in the context of the forthcoming, scheduled elections in Europe, and possibility of other ‘snap polls’ in 2017 too, including in Italy, where Eurosceptical parties are also gaining popularity, the continent’s leaders will now be under intense political pressure to ‘double down’ on security measures at the EU and national levels. This will build not just on existing measures in place, but also on the EU’s announcement in Brussels this month to clamp down on terrorism financing and organised crime.
At the heart of this is a growing sense that Europe needs to have a more coordinated, pan-continental approach, in much the same way that US security has been organised post-September 2011 by the Department for Home Security which was created after the attacks in New York City and Washington, DC by al-Qaida. The current sub-national, let alone continental, fragmentation on information and intelligence sharing is highlighted by the split between Germany’s law enforcement authorities which are constitutionally vested across the country’s 16 states.
EU security policy has come under intensified focus not just with recent terrorist attacks on the continent; but also the ongoing migration crisis; and European Council President Donald Tusk has said in recent weeks that “people expect that the EU...will again be a guarantor of stability, security and protection”. With calls from several leading politicians for a Twenty First Century European-style pact for security, this highlights that a carefully crafted package of measures, including greater EU intelligence cooperation and strengthening Europe’s border force, could secure high level political traction in 2017.
Indeed, given current disagreements within Europe on the wisdom of wider, grand integration initiatives, including in the economics and finance area, security issues are one of the few areas right now where there is significant consensus across the member states and Brussels on the continent’s best way forward, post-Brexit. Hence, another reason why there is likely to be movement on this agenda in coming months to emphasise the resilience and integrity of the continuing EU project which celebrates in 2017 the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, one of its founding treaties.
Moreover, on a related theme, Brussels also now senses a window of opportunity to push forward a proposed European Defence Action Plan that advocates greater military cooperation between the EU member states. The debate over this issue dates back to at least the 1950s when an initiative to form a European Defence Community failed to see the light of day.
Today, however, the impulse toward greater integration is being driven by Russian assertiveness post-Crimea; financial pressure on national defence budgets; plus the threat of incoming US president Trump to scale down the US security commitment to NATO, and his campaign rhetoric that Washington should not defend European allies that are perceived not to be paying their fair share of contributions to the military alliance. And Brexit too could now also eliminate a longstanding obstacle to greater European cooperation in this area given that successive UK governments have been opposed to deeper defence integration at the EU level.
One signal of potential direction of travel came in March when European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker asserted the EU needs its own army, a proposal welcomed by German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen, so Europe can “react more credibly to the threat to peace in a member state or in a neighbouring state”. While such a force is at best a longer-term aspiration, however, a new European Defence Action Plan was discussed at this month’s EU summit with a goal of reversing around a decade of defence spending cuts by EU member states, totally more than 10% in real terms.
The proposed new action plan has four main pillars. These are joint financing of mutually agreed defence capacities through a European Defence Fund; new funding of defence research; unlocking of EU investment in defence supply chains; and creation of an enhanced internal market and an industry fit for purpose to deliver capability priorities for the future.
Taken overall, the German atrocity will intensify political pressure on European leaders to tighten security in 2017. Especially if there are further attacks in coming months, terrorism could become a key election issue across the continent with Eurosceptical parties pushing for termination of Schengen.
— Andrew Hammond is an Associate at LSE IDEAS (the Centre for International Affairs, Diplomacy and Strategy) at the London School of Economics.
