Terror bites, followed by EU Pavlov’s bark

The bloc is to discuss ideas on how to improve security it couldn’t agree to after previous attacks.

Another terrorist attack, then the familiar EU response.

As Brussels struggled to get back on its feet in the wake of Tuesday’s deadly blasts, in which 31 people were killed and 270 injured, European politicians spoke of an urgent need for “a quick, more forceful response” to “catch and track the terrorists.”

On the evidence of the EU response to every previous terrorist outrage, the most recent just four months ago in Paris, this is the reality: The “extraordinary” meeting of justice and home affairs ministers called for Thursday in Brussels will produce noble sentiments and stand slim to no chance of adopting any meaningful change to the way the bloc protects itself from terrorists.

As before, the rhetoric came in forceful gusts from various quarters a day after bomb blasts ripped through Brussels airport and a metro station, the latter just down the street from where ministers will meet Thursday.

“The intelligence services must cooperate better,” German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière told Germany’s NTV. “The best way to stop such attacks is exchanging information. There are different mentalities. People don’t want to share all of their information.”

The European Council’s counter-terrorism chief, Gilles de Kerchove, told CNN that the way forward was to tackle terror “quicker, more forcefully.”

“We will not succeed by acting in isolation,” Theresa May, the U.K.’s home secretary, told the British parliament Wednesday.

And French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Wednesday reiterated calls for the swift approval of the Passenger Name Record (PNR) directive, which would oblige airlines to give EU countries their passengers’ data. “It’s an essential tool,” Valls said, saying this instrument would enable countries “to catch and track terrorists.” PNR, first proposed in 2011, was backed by EU countries in December but is awaiting approval in the European Parliament.

“The future of Schengen … is at stake,” Valls added, referring to the passport-free travel zone in Europe.

More ‘union’ cowbell

The French prime minister was speaking in Brussels while standing next to Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, who on Wednesday called for an “EU security union.” Vaguely referring to a series of Commission proposals that the EU countries might adopt, Juncker didn’t spell out clearly what that means, other than adding to an impressive list of EU “unions” — capital markets union, energy union, economic and monetary union…

The ambitious idea of establishing a European equivalent of the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or even a European version of the U.S.’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as Belgium’s Prime Minister Charles Michel has advocated, is kept away in a locked drawer, deemed far too difficult to even contemplate by most EU leaders.

“[I]mplementing a European CIA would need a treaty change,” de Kerchove told Radio RTBF last December.

Commission officials say they cannot even come up with such a proposal because Brussels has no power to do so, saying it’s up to the national states.

“It’s a real pity we cannot … start working on something like that,” a diplomat said.

The “extraordinary security summit” on Thursday is by design largely a theatrical set-piece. Similar summits were held after the Paris attacks in November (death toll = 130) and the foiled attack on the Paris-bound Thalys fast train in August (death toll = 0).

The ministers will pay lip-service to the need to work together, but the package of measures they will push through, mainly put forward by the Commission, will have already been signed off.

“Most of [the package] is not new — just a collection of what they are already doing,” said Jan Philipp Albrecht, a German Green MEP who is the vice-chair of the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee.

That includes setting up a team of national counter-terrorism experts at Europol’s European Counter Terrorism Center and a push for greater integration of European and international security databases, diplomats say, referring to the content of a draft joint statement leaders will agree at the summit.

It does not include anything significant to boost airport security, even though 11 of those killed on Tuesday were waiting to catch flights out of Brussels airport.

“Security is within the competence of national authorities,” Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European commissioner in charge of home affairs issues, said Wednesday. “I am sure the Belgian authorities have already taken into consideration recent experiences and will do their utmost in order to better provide, in security terms, safety to citizens.”

‘Rings of steel’

Not everyone thinks it should stay that way. The chairman of the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, British MEP Claude Moraes, said the time had come for EU states to address the vulnerability of airport public spaces by agreeing on common security standards.

“These are very difficult, costly issues, but if you look at high-security airports around the world, you know that it is do-able,” Moraes said, citing the security model of Israeli airports, where cars are stopped on the way in and security personnel work both inside and outside the terminal.

This suggestion was rejected by fellow committee member Timothy Kirkhope, who said the creation of a “ring of steel” around an airport’s perimeter would create logistical problems and harm intelligence-gathering efforts.

“This would mean a total re-think to our approach to travel,” said Kirkhope, a qualified pilot.

This article has been updated to clarify MEP Claude Moraes’ remarks on airport security.