EU agrees anti-terror strategy
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Spurred by a sense of unity after the Madrid bombings, European Union leaders have agreed to major reforms in the bloc's fight against terrorism.
Delegates meeting in Brussels for two days of talks have also appointed a counter-terrorism coordinator.
In another significant development, the leaders agreed to reopen stalled talks on a European constitution. Negotiations were derailed last December in a bitter power struggle over voting rights.
Many of the EU leaders traveled to Brussels from the memorial service in Spain for the 190 victims of the March 11 terrorist bombings in Madrid.
Ireland's Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, chairing the summit, said that such an affront to democracy and to the EU's values had renewed their unity of purpose.
"The threat of terrorism is a threat to our security, our democracies, and our way of life in the European Union, and we will do everything in our power to protect our people from this threat," he told delegates on Thursday.
European leaders also invoked a solidarity clause that commits all EU states to assist any member hit by terrorism.
The clause had been tied up in the stalled constitution.
An 18-page declaration pledged that: "There will be neither weakness nor compromise of any kind when dealing with terrorists. No country in the world can consider itself immune."
Javier Solana, the EU's international policy chief, named Gijs de Vries, a former deputy Dutch interior minister, as the region's new counter-terrorism coordinator.
Some reports have billed him as a powerful anti-terrorism tsar, but his mandate was tightly restricted to trying to make the complex EU institutions function better, making proposals and liaising between Brussels with member states. (de Vries profile)
"He's going to work with me and try to co-ordinate internal work in the institutions of the EU as I said and also co-ordinate relations between the EU and other countries," Solana said.
Anti-terror boss Gijs de Vries. |  |
Countries that have failed to absorb the Europe-wide measures to counter terrorist money laundering have now pledged to do so.
The measures -- such as a pan-European arrest warrant to replace lengthy extradition proceedings -- were agreed upon after the September 11 attacks in the United States but have still not been fully implemented.
"The shortcomings and delays are unforgivable now after the attacks in Madrid," European Commission President Romano Prodi said.
The EU will also look at common registers of terrorist suspects and the keeping of records on their use of mobile phones and the Internet.
The new mood of unity has extended to battles being fought over a new constitution for the enlarging EU which Ahern said should be concluded in a deal in June.
Ahern said the leaders had committed themselves to find a solution by their next summit on June 17-18.
"We have a changed atmosphere tonight," Ahern declared after a dinner that brought together the leaders of the bloc's 25 current and future member states.
And in a symbolic move, they declared March 11 the European day for the fight against terrorism.
