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News > World

EU Pushes Sweeping Border Control and Cross-Border Monitoring

  • A Belgian police officer stands guard during an anti-terror raid in the Schaerbeek - Schaarbeek district of Brussels, on March 25, 2016.

    A Belgian police officer stands guard during an anti-terror raid in the Schaerbeek - Schaarbeek district of Brussels, on March 25, 2016. | Photo: AFP

Published 6 April 2016
Opinion

Following the Brussels attacks last month, which hit the heart of the European Union, the commission is scrambling to pass counterterrorism legislation.

The European Commission pressed for counterterrorism updates on Wednesday that would “fill in gaps” in cross-border intelligence and spend billions in creating a “common regime” to spot threats.

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Following the Brussels attacks last month, which hit the heart of the European Union, the commission is scrambling to pass counterterrorism legislation that has been lagging. Rights groups have warned about border control and data collection that impinges on privacy and further curbs migration, but First Vice President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans said the moves are "to protect us and the freedoms we defend."

A new Smart Borders package builds on a plan – previously in piloting – to enhance security and surveillance on the borders and increase “interoperability” between member states. Besides buffing up satellite and fingerprint tracking of migration, the plan strengthens existing centralized information systems and proposes an entry-exit system to monitor travel history.

The package “ is not a direct response to the refugee crisis, although it contributes to the overall strengthening of our border management,” it says in the text. Instead, it says, it is aimed at reducing “overstayers” that stay past their visa expiration date – but much of the money is devoted to guarding the coast.

The same day, the commission passed a joint statement to increase preparedness for hybrid threats, drawing on already existing policy on energy, maritime and cyber security. Hybrid threats, according to the statement, is a “mixture of conventional and unconventional, military and nonmilitary, overt and covert actions that can be used in a coordinated manner by state or non-state actors to achieve specific objectives while remaining below the threshold of formally declared warfare.”

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Among several suggested points, the statement aims to build an EU Hybrid Fusion Cell to analyze cross-border intelligence, develop media monitoring and a Center of Excellence in each member state, establish “Space Surveillance and Tracking,” modernize technologies through private-public partnerships, pressure companies to remove illegal content and “integrate, exploit and coordinate the capabilities of military action,” specifically with NATO.

While the commission justifies far-reaching data collection and monitoring in light of the Brussels attacks, ongoing additions to existing security protocols have caused concern among civil rights groups and researchers.

In an interview with teleSUR on a previous form of the package in December, security researcher Francesco Ragazzi said that “relying excessively on big data doesn’t give results” since “proper counterterrorism is a lot about human intelligence.”

Another researcher on counterterrorism policy, Ben Hayes, said that civil society demands for more protections have become “irrelevant” in legislation that “once adopted will be with us for time to come .”
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