After terrorists’ attacks in Paris on Friday November 13th, the international media had widespread coverage of the tragedy. It appeared that whole world expresses its solidarity after the attacks. Suruç, Ankara, Sina, Beirut and now Paris, it seems that terror will not slow down, notes Nilgün T. Gümüs in Hurriyet.
Naturally, a number of new measures should be created by the EU to tackle the terrorist threat, note Stephen Fidler and Julian E. Barnes in WSJE. It will include the creation of an effective passenger name record for flights, a framework to combat terrorism financing and stronger gun laws, as well as intelligence sharing and stronger enforcement of external borders. France has reinstated border controls, it may also even close them, as many connect such attacks with the ease with which terrorists can travel from one member state to another allied to the large number of arrivals of migrants from the Middle East.
Margarida Peixoto notes in Diario Economico that Schengen will very likely change after the attacks in Paris, reminding that Schengen was already under heavy criticism due to the refugees’ crisis. “Only a miracle can save the Schengen area we know,” a Jutarnji list headline reads. A large part of papers report on European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk’s words that emphasised the need that the refugee crisis should not be addressed as a jihadist threat.
Speaking at the G20 summit, European Council President Donald Tusk noted that the world leaders have a special responsibility in the fight against terrorism. For his part, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker wrote on Twitter that he is deeply shocked by the events in Paris, We are standing in solidarity with the French people, Mr Juncker noted. He recalled that “those who have done the attacks are those from which the refugees are trying to escape not the opposite.” As to EU High Representative and EC Vice-President Federica Mogherini, she declared that the international community is all being affected by terrorism and those who try to divide us. First EC Vice-President Frans Timmermans stated “it is time for Europe to work together closer and better to guarantee the security its citizens.”
Õhtuleht’s editorial writes that the terrorist attacks in Paris have undoubtedly increased solidarity within Europe but it is now time to find joint solutions on how to stand up against terrorists threatening Europe’s security. And solidarity is what many papers are asking for. A target of terror in democratic states is the open and free society, and after every terror attack countries must find a balance between liberty and security, and so far the European countries have emerged intact from the tribulations of terror, wrote Helsingin Sanomat in an editorial. These attacks are against freedom and more surveillance and border closures are the wrong answers, comments Alexandra Föderl-Schmid in Der Standard. An Expansión editorial calls for suffocating terrorists’ financing and combating them the territories occupied by them.
According to Mr Herzinger in Die Welt France cannot stand alone in fighting this “terrible threat” and “barbarian” jihadists. Both Holger Senzel on NDR Info and Bartosz T. Wielinski explains in Gazeta Wyborcza talk on the need to put our national egoism aside. One cannot let go of freedom for the greater good of safety. We must not change our way of life as this means that “we have lost”, said Holger Senzel. Mr Wielinski adds that Islamists now capitalise on European politicians’ disgracing dispute over allocation of refugees and people’s fears of the newcomers fuelled by the right wing populist parties. This calls for stopping the harmful disputes in EU and start treating the migration crisis as a common problem putting aside particular national interests.
Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, who immediately expressed his support to the request of the French Minister of Interior Bernard Cazeneuve to hold an extraordinary meeting of the EU’s Council of Interior Ministers next Friday, also announced that he would visit Paris yesterday, along with the presiding Minister of the EU Council of Ministers Jean Asselborn in order to meet Mr Cazeneuve and prepare the agenda for Friday. So far the EU rejected the possibility of creating a common police force. National intelligence authorities cooperate on a platform against sources of funding for terrorism. In July a new division of Europol started to identify online terrorist material.
The Commission is preparing manuals for national authorities on how to protect infrastructure and crucial sites. On January 1, 2016 the European centre against terrorism will be formed, based in Europol, reports Il Sole 24 Ore. As some terrorists have links with Brussels, criminologist Alain Bauer said on BMF TV “the cooperation with Belgium works well”. In his front page article in Handelsblatt, Gabor Steingart argues that referring to the Paris attacks as “terror attacks” is a “belittlement” as “the West is in a global war with radicalised Islamists.” In fact, what has started on 9/11 has become accelerated and has become more brutal. Mr Steingart adds that accepting refugees, Germany has not only demonstrated humanity, but also “opened a new frontline within the West” as some groups of refugees are unlikely to get along here, given that they do not get along in their home regions.
©europeanunion2015
