European Approaches to Homeland Security and Counterterrorism

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The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States and the subsequent attacks on European countries such as the United Kingdom and Spain have prompted both sides of the Atlantic to reinvigorate their respective efforts to ensure homeland security and combat terrorism. However, U.S. and European approaches to these issues differ. While the United States has embarked on a wholesale reorganization of its domestic security and border protection institutions,
European countries have largely preferred to work within their existing institutional architectures to combat terrorism and respond to other security challenges and disasters, both natural and man-made.

This report examines homeland security and counterterrorist measures in six selected European countries: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. None of these European countries currently has a single ministry or department equivalent to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In most of these countries, responsibility for different aspects of homeland security and counterterrorism is scattered across several ministries or different levels of
government.

Different countries maintain different priorities in spending for homeland security, but most have devoted increased funds over the last several years to intelligence and law enforcement efforts against terrorism. Funding for measures to strengthen transport security, improve emergency preparedness and response, counter chem-bio incidents, and protect critical national infrastructure are more difficult to determine and compare among the countries, given that responsibility for these
various issues is often spread among the budgets of different government ministries. Some critics suggest that the Europeans have been slow to bolster domestic protection efforts beyond the law enforcement angle. Others contend that European governments have sought to integrate counterterrorism and preparedness programs into existing emergency management efforts, thereby providing greater flexibility to respond to a wide range of security challenges with often limited personnel and financial resources.

Some U.S. policymakers and Members of Congress are taking an increasing interest in how European countries are managing homeland security issues and emergency preparedness and response, in light of both recent terrorist activity and Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast in August 2005. In seeking to protect U.S. interests at home and abroad, many U.S. officials recognize that the actions or inaction of the European allies can affect U.S. domestic security, especially given the U.S. Visa Waiver Program, which allows nationals of many European
states to travel to the United States without a visa or other checks on their identities. Some experts suggest that greater U.S.-European cooperation in the field of homeland security is necessary in order to better guarantee security on both sides of the Atlantic.

Federation of American Scientists (FAS): Congressional Research Service [CRS] Reports https://fas.org/sgp/crs/index.html

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