Responding to Madrid 11/3/04

Date: 10/03/05

Tomorrow (11 March) is the first anniversary of the worst terrorist outrage in the EU's history. Islamic extremists - believed to be part of the al- Qaeda network - detonated a series of rucksack bombs on four commuter trains in Madrid. A total of 192 people died.

Soon afterwards, the Union's leaders adopted a wide-ranging plan of action.

Progress in improving the EU's arsenal of anti-terror instruments has been patchy. The implementation of a new European arrest warrant has been speeded up. It has led to the average length of time for an extradition proceeding being reduced from almost a year to less than three months. But the plan to make it a truly EU-wide scheme has been frustrated by Italian dithering.

Efforts to beef up Europol's role have been hampered by a protracted row - resolved last month - over whether a Frenchman or a German should head the Hague-based police office.

Some EU states have failed to meet international commitments. Ireland and the Czech Republic, for example, have still not ratified the UN Convention for the suppression of terrorist financing. And policymakers have been criticised for eroding basic rights in the process of fighting against terror.

Civil liberties group Statewatch believes the EU's action plan is too fuzzy. Of the 57 measures envisaged in it, 27 do not deal specifically with terrorist violence but with crime in general or insufficiently targeted surveillance.

Alongside Spain, the UK and (to a lesser extent) the Republic of Ireland have suffered from the most sustained campaigns of terrorism in recent EU history.

Chris Patten, the former European commissioner, has admitted that repressive actions such as internment without trial backfired in Northern Ireland. Rather than deter violence, they helped aggravate the grievances which the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and other armed groups have exploited for recruitment purposes. Yet the British government has made laws introduced in response to the IRA and its dissidents more draconian. Home Secretary Charles Clarke is trying to go one step further by seeking powers to place suspects under house arrest. But Clarke suffered a setback this week when the House of Lords, the UK parliament's upper chamber, blocked the law.

Tensions between Muslims and the remainder of the community have increased in the past year in various parts of the EU. This was particularly noticeable in the Netherlands when the murder of Islam-bashing filmmaker Theo van Gogh in November triggered a wave of attacks on mosques and Muslim schools.

At 12 million, Muslims make up the Union's biggest religious minority. The vast majority have no link with the Madrid bombings or terrorism of any kind. But civil libertarians have suggested that measures which have the effect of treating all Muslims as suspect run the risk of institutionalising racism.

By exacerbating the grievances of the more marginalised elements of society, they could prove counterproductive.

On the occasion of the first anniversary of the events the article summarises the EU's response to the terrorist attacks in Madrid on 11 March 2004. Islamic extremists - believed to be part of the al- Qaeda network - detonated a series of rucksack bombs on four commuter trains in Madrid. A total of 192 people died.