Terrorism expert group

The European Commission will next week (12 September) announce that it is setting up a group of experts from the public and private sector to advise it on security and terrorism.

The group will not be an official advisory body to the Commission but will discuss the "best modern technologies and research" to address security concerns, a Commission spokesman said.

The Commission has previously put forward ideas on protecting public and private critical infrastructure, on bio-terrorism and on detection technologies. The experts will give an insight from both the public and private sectors since the ideas would be researched by public-private institutions, designed by private firms and implemented by governments.

The announcement will follow a debate held this week (5 September) in the European Parliament on the EU’s responses to the terrorist threat. Manuel Lobo Antunes, the Europe minister of Portugal, current holder of the EU presidency, told the Parliament that efforts to appoint an EU terrorism co-ordinator would be stepped up. MEPs complained that the post has remained unfilled since Gijs de Vries stepped down in March.

Some MEPs also criticised the EU’s anti-terrorism approach as failing to respect civil liberties. "We don’t argue that counter-terrorism meas-ures are necessary…but laws must be proportionate to the threats," said Graham Watson, a UK Liberal MEP.

Franco Frattini, the European commissioner for justice, freedom and security, said the thwarted attacks in Denmark and Germany this week and previous police work which stopped attacks in other member states showed the need for a more co-ordinated response from the EU.

The European Commission will next week (12 September) announce that it is setting up a group of experts from the public and private sector to advise it on security and terrorism.