EU-landene greier ikke bli enige seg imellom om hvordan de skal bekjempe terroren. Ingen vil underordne seg. Samarbeidet går tregt. Selv det man er blitt enig om, som Eurojust, fungerer bare i navnet.

Despite the call by European governments to step up co-operation in sharing intelligence, the council of ministers and the Commission, the EU’s central institutions, and even member states on a bilateral level, cannot agree how to co-ordinate. The «counter-terrorism tsar» is supposed to remedy these shortcomings.

Det lyder mange fete ord når noe alvorlig skjer, om alt man lover å gjøre. Virkeligheten er noe annet: Tyskland fikk villedende informasjon fra Spania om bombene.

Germany was reminded of this last weekend. Its federal criminal bureau said the Spanish authorities intentionally withheld information and misled German officials over the explosives used in the Madrid bombings. The Spanish conservative government had insisted the Goma 2 Eco dynamite for the explosives had been frequently used by Eta, the Basque separatist movement. On Monday, it admitted that was not the case.

EUs problem er at ingen vil avstå sin nasjonale makt.

Leaving aside this issue, everybody says they are in favour of co-ordination but nobody is in favour of being co-ordinated,» said a EU diplomat. «The reflex of interior ministers is to jealously protect their powers on the national level even though the fight against terrorism is a global one. I don’t know how much will change after March 11,» he added.

Det er 2,5 år siden 911, likevel finnes det intet samlende koordinert arbeid:

Currently, no committee inside the council or commission is responsible for all aspects of terrorism financing.

«We don’t have an overview of what is being done by the transport, justice, foreign policy, and economy/ financial councils to combat terrorism,» said another diplomat

Etableringen av Eurojust, en sentral påtalemyndighet med egen påtalerett, går uhyre tregt.

They pledged to have a common arrest warrant in place by last January but five countries have yet to ratify it. They promised to establish joint investigative teams with the participation of Europol, the EU’s fledgling intelligence services that security experts say has few powers. This has been delayed.

Several member states pay lip service to Eurojust. Created in December 2001, it consists of senior magistrates, prosecutors, judges and legal experts from every EU country to co-ordinate the investigation and prosecution of cross-border crime. «A minimalist approach to Eurojust has been adopted by the member states,» says a report last week drawn up by the council’s security experts.

Europe at loggerheads over how to co-ordinate on terrorism