THE EU’S MATURE COUNTERTERRORISM POLICY – A CRITICAL HISTORICAL AND FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT

This paper takes stock of the EU’s response to international terrorism since 9/11. The first part provides a summary historical overview, which highlights the event-driven and contingent development of the EU’s counterterrorism policy. The second part presents a critical assessment of policy outcomes according to the objectives set out in the EU’s Counterterrorism Strategy. Measures ‘to pursue’, and ‘to protect’ against, terrorists seem to have grown substantially. In practice, however, they are undercut by a lack of focus and use at the operational level.

Similarly, formal capacities ‘to respond’ to terrorism have been boosted, but there are doubts as to their relevance in real crisis situations. Yet most importantly, the EU remains unable to do more ‘to prevent’ terrorism. This seriously limits the overall effectiveness and output legitimacy of the EU’s efforts. The concluding third part extrapolates these findings into the future, and argues that EU counterterrorism policy is increasingly path-dependent and technologically lop-sided.

This maturation process is then briefly discussed from two competing normative positions. The paper sides with a more conventional intergovernmental reading that regards EU counterterrorism policy as politically constrained and basically legitimate, but finishes by stressing the need for adequate ex ante control mechanisms.

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THE EU’S MATURE COUNTERTERRORISM POLICY – A CRITICAL HISTORICAL AND FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT