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Common Terrorism Policy

• Mark Mardell
• 6 Nov 07, 11:00 AM

Whatever you think of Franco Frattini, the European Justice Commissioner, you couldn’t say that he lacks ambition.

He’s proposing a host of new EU laws from collecting information on aircraft passengers, to plans to block sites on the internet that tell you how to make a bomb.

You also couldn’t accuse him of cowardice. His report on how countries are doing so far in coordinating the fight against terrorism has a go at most EU countries, including the United Kingdom.

Five years ago, the European Union’s countries agreed a common approach to laws to fight terrorism but the report from the commission is very critical of, well, most nations apart from Malta and Greece, it seems.

Outlawing websites

You might expect from the general stereotype that the commission would be saying Britain was too harsh.

Not a bit of it. Our laws are too soft evidently.

What they actually wanted is for all countries to have a specific category of terrorist offences with tougher penalties spelt out in law.

The easiest way to do this would be to have an offence of "terrorist murder" (and terrorist GBH, and terrorist incitement and so on).

This is not what happens under English or Scottish law, where the offence is already covered in some way: there is an offence of murder, and a set of guidelines, not laws, that suggests how judges should approach sentencing. The commission feels the UK along with Italy, Germany, Spain and Ireland falls down here.

Now there is a proposal for more harmonisation.

The new laws planned would make sure the European Union’s 27 countries had similar and specific laws making it illegal to provoke terrorism, recruit terrorists or train them.

The internet gets some special attention, and one of the aims of the report is to outlaw sites that either exhort people to violence or tell them how to make bombs.

Tracking explosives

Probably more controversial is the Passenger Name Records scheme, which would mean that anyone travelling into the European Union from outside would have their name and other details stored, so that the information can be shared between countries.

It very much mirrors the American system, and Britain has something similar, but the government is keen on everybody else joining in. But it doesn’t apply to people travelling within the EU.

Another plan in the pipeline is an agreement with those who legally use explosives to vet those who work in the industry, keep a track of suspicious transactions, and alert others when something goes missing or is stolen.

There’s no doubt there are at least two political purposes behind this. First of all, politicians of all stripes are desperate to avoid blame (and to be less cynical, avoid guilt) if some terrible incident does happen.

They would much rather being accused of doing too much, of over-reacting, by people safe in their armchairs yelling at the TV, than being accuse of doing too little by distraught and bereaved relatives of victims.

And the European Union has a self-declared and now very obvious purpose to reconnect with its often suspicious and hostile citizens by doing something that most people regard as worthwhile. Fighting terrorism, along with climate change, comes right at the top of that list.

Loopholes

Of course, many in the UK and elsewhere dislike the fact that it is the European Commission that has the sole right to propose EU laws and dislike the fact that they nearly always end up with greater harmonisation.

That is an important political objection, and this is a case which is bound to exercise those who dislike the EU’s direction of travel. But what about the practical policies?

I can’t see many people objecting to greater co-ordination of those in the explosive industries all over Europe (although I am all ears if you think this is wrong).

The commission says its aim is to avoid terrorists using loopholes in one country to wreak havoc in another, to eliminate the weak links.

But does it make sense to have nearly identical law in the Czech republic and Spain? And should there be specific categories of terrorist offence?

If you have an offence of "terrorist murder" do you have to have similar laws of "race hate murder"? Sexual murder? Murders as a result of domestic violence? Murder of children?

And does that suggest that murdering someone "because they looked at me funny" is, if not all right, less serious than these categories? (Presumably not for the person murdered and their family and friends.)

If so why? Common sense would suggest that harsh sentences might not make a lot of difference to ideologically committed killers willing to blow themselves up, but might on the margins make a difference to someone who blows their top when their parking space is nicked.

As ever, I invite and welcome your views.

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