Our World in 2017

ISSUE#1193 | January 2017
QUO VADIS EUROPA?
NEW EUROPE: OUR WORLD IN 2017
Page-13
www.neweurope.eu
by Dimitris Avramopoulos
An open and safe Europe
European Commissioner for Migration,
Home Affairs and Citizenship.
BELGIUM -BRUSSELS
As 2016 draws to a close in the shadow
of the Berlin attack, Europe's cohesion
and resilience are put into question once
again. Migration and terrorism continue
to be the two most important issues for
European citizens today. At the same time,
the vast majority of European citizens ask for
European and common solutions for their
concerns. In fact, 81% of European citizens
want to maintain free movement so they can
live, work, study and do business anywhere
in the EU.
While Schengen is one of the greatest
achievements of European integration, it
is also at the heart of both the migration
challenges and terrorist threat that we face
today.
After the Berlin suspect was found and
neutralised in Italy just before Christmas,
there were many voices questioning the
viability of Schengen's open borders
today.
But closing borders will not stop
terrorism. Instead, we have to better
coordinate, better exchange information,
better use all our systems and our rules.
There is no use in creating additional rules
or systems if we don't connect all the dots.
Terrorism knows no borders – instead we
have to work across them. This is what the
EU's Security Union is about – and at the
essence of it is more trust.
We want to make sure that people don't
radicalise in the first place, by learning
from all the thousands of practitioners
on the ground across Europe through the
Radicalisation Awareness Network. As
Daesh is losing ground territorially, the
fight against radicalisation and terrorist
propaganda increasingly shifts to the online
world. Intensified collaboration with internet
companies through the Internet Forum is
now more important than ever.
We want to make sure that potential
terrorists don't get the training, financial tools
or help to travel so as not to commit terrorist
acts. This is what we will achieve now that the
EU's Terrorism Directive has been agreed.
We want to make sure that those who
may wish us harm cannot easily get hold
of dangerous firearms – by making the
acquisition and trafficking of illegal firearms
impossible in the first place. This is what our
revised Firearms Directive will do, and why
we are also intensifying our cooperation with
the Western Balkans.
We also want to make sure that potential
terrorist suspects don't cross our borders
unnoticed. In the last few months, we have
tremendously beefed up the security of our
external border management.
The creation of the European Border and
Coast Guard was a milestone in how from
Flowers, posters and stuffed animals were placed to commemorate the victims of the Nice truck attack at the French embassy in Berlin, Germany, 18 July 2016.
EPA/MAURIZIO GAMBARINI
But closing borders will not stop terrorism. Instead, we
have to better coordinate, better exchange information,
better use all our systems and our rules. There is no use in
creating additional rules or systems if we don't connect all
the dots. This is what the EU's Security Union is about –
and at the essence of it is more trust
now onwards we legally and operationally
perceive and manage the external border of
one Member State as the external border of all
Member States. Systematic checks will now
also be carried out for all those who cross our
external borders, regardless of nationality. In
addition, we have proposed an EU Entry-
Exit System to better monitor third-country
national overstayers, and a European Travel
Information and Authorisation System
to check for potential security but also
migration threats under visa-free thirdcountry
nationals coming to the EU.
Recently, the European Commission
has also proposed to strengthen the
Schengen Information System to better
fight terrorism, but also cross-border crime
and irregular migration by introducing the
obligation to create an alert in cases related
to terrorist offences as well as for "unknown
wanted persons" and return decisions. In
the future, no critical information should
ever be lost on potential terrorist suspects
or irregular migrants crossing our Schengen
borders. On top of that, we also want to better
support Member States in combatting travel
document fraud both in terrorism but also in
irregular migration circumstances.
In all of this, Europol and the European
Counter Terrorism Centre will play a crucial
role in collecting and exchanging information,
as well as operationally supporting Member
States in counter-terrorism investigations.
European citizens today want more safety
and more security. They don't want isolation;
they don't want less freedom. In fact, the
majority of European citizens today see the
EU as a place of stability in a troubled world.
This means that while we must continue our
work to make the EU, but also the world, a
safer place, these efforts must never come at
the expense of our openness – neither our
physical openness through our Schengen
borders, nor our mental openness based
on our fundamental values of freedom and
tolerance.
In times of increasing mobility and
globalisation, the only way forward is
together. There is no single frontline in the
global war on terror. All our actions are
interconnected. From working towards peace
and stability in the neighbourhood and better
managing regional migration flows to fighting
terrorism.
These challenges are not just European,
but global. This is why cooperation with
partner countries such as Turkey, the Western
Balkans, Northern Africa but also the United
States is quintessential now and in the future.
As xenophobia and nationalism are
on the rise, 2017 will be a year where the
European project will continue to be tested.
The past year, with an ongoing refugee crisis
and several terrorist attacks on European
soil, has proven how resilient Europe can be.
Compared to the absence of a comprehensive
security and migration policy before, in less
than a year, the European Union has taken
leaps forward.
When the memory of the aftermath of
the Second World War starts to fade, we
must never forget the initial raison d'être of
the European Union: peace and stability –
precisely what the majority of Europeans still
believe in today.