Europol’s Counter-terrorism Role: A Chicken-Egg Dilemma

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to offer a comprehensive analysis of Europol’s fledgling role in the area of counter-terrorism. Based on official European Union (EU) documents, internal reports and secondary sources, I contend that most of Europol’s counter-terrorism activities suffer from a peculiar chicken-egg dilemma. On the one hand, Europol has hitherto not been granted any supranational powers by the EU Member States and is not trusted by national law enforcement and intelligence agencies because it does not perform any indispensable counter-terrorism functions at the moment. On the other hand, the persisting lack of tangible ‘value-added’ in the area of counter-terrorism is primarily due to Europol’s limited powers and the lack of trust from the national agencies, which prefer to utilise long-standing bilateral and/or non-EU multilateral arrangements when it comes to information-sharing and practical work coordination. Both bilateral and informal multilateral arrangements, however, suffer from a number of important weaknesses, and their frequent use by the EU Member States has already raised intriguing questions concerning the legitimacy, accountability and transparency of the entire EU’s counter-terrorism policy. Europol could, therefore, potentially deliver tangible value-added in the area of counter-terrorism in a number of important areas, provided that the aforementioned chicken-egg dilemma is eventually resolved.KeywordsEuropean UnionMember StateEuropean Union Member StateCouncil DecisionIntelligence ServiceThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.