The Approach of the eu and the us to Combating Terrorism in Relation to Human Rights Master Thesis

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3.5 London
3.5.1 EU Counter-Terrorism strategy
3.6 The Achilles’ heel in EU’s efforts to counter terrorism

3.4 Madrid

On March 11^th2004, according to some 911 days after 9/11, a terrorist attack occurred on European soil. It was the biggest terrorist attack in Europe since the hijacked Pan Am flight which crashed onto Lockerbie in Scotland in 1988 and the worst and biggest in Spain’s history. The notorious 3/11^¹⁹⁵ started, just like 9/11 and any other day, with thousands of people making their way to work, school or elsewhere. That morning’s classic routine changed when the first set of the chain of bombs exploded at 7.39 in a commuter train stationed in the Atocha train station, in the heart of Madrid. Simultaneously, a second explosion occurred on a train which was about 500 meters away from the aforementioned station. As another train was passing through the El Pozo station in another part of Madrid, the third set of bombs went off at 7.41. The fourth and final explosion, at least as far as the bomb was ‘successfully’ detonated, took place at 7.42 as it passed through the Santa Eugenia station.

These attacks, found to have been planned in Turkey claimed 191 lives and no less than 1,500 casualties. The Spanish government under Aznar, which was ousted by the national elections just four days after the attack, who had been a staunch supporter of and direct participant in Bush’s policy in Iraq despite virtually no support from the public, immediately identified ETA as the prime suspect. Soon, however, it became clear that the attack had been perpetrated by mainly Moroccan and Algerian nationals, seven of whom committed mass-suicide by explosion three weeks after the attacks during a police raid, killing a police officer; thus making the official fatality count 192.^¹⁹⁶ The twenty eight individuals, identified as being involved in the preparation and/or execution of the terrorist acts, were found to have connections to Al Qaeda, and several of them were found to have been involved in the 2003 Casablanca bombing^¹⁹⁷.

The reaction of the EU member states, including acceding states^¹⁹⁸, was immediate. A solidarity clause^¹⁹⁹ was drawn up and signified the automatic commitment to the agreement that in case a member state is struck by a terrorist act, the fellow member states would, along with providing aid, mobilize all resources deemed necessary to respond and in the longer term contribute to reconstruction. The European Council convened in a special session on March 25^th, where the Declaration on Combating Terrorism^²⁰⁰ was formulated and agreed upon. Full solidarity was reiterated along with the stressing of the absolute necessity to fully implement as a matter of urgency the measures^²⁰¹ that had been adopted since the 9/11 attacks, giving June 2004 as the deadline^²⁰² Furthermore, the European Council called upon the Commission and Javier Solana to concretize the way forward in implementing the 2003 Strategy characterised by a long-term involvement in addressing the terrorist threats^²⁰³.

The Declaration went on to list the objectives which were to be incorporated into the EU Action plan against terrorism, its updated version which was endorsed in June, containing some 150 measures^²⁰⁴. These objectives included the increased involvement of the EDSP, the strengthening internal as well as external cooperation and coordination, maximising the capabilities to protect from and respond to a terrorist threat and/or attack, to increase border controls as well to intensify information exchange^²⁰⁵. With regards to the latter, the Joint Situation Centre, operational since 1999, whose scope was extended in the aftermath of the attacks to sharing information with other intelligence agencies, most prominently with Europol, and to analyse all available intelligence and transform it into threat assessments.^²⁰⁶ Traditionally, SitCen dealt with externally-looming terrorist threats but since January 2005, the SitCen analysts have combined various data including their own to provide member states with strategic analyses of the situation within Europe.^²⁰⁷ In addition to this, Austria and Belgium pushed for the creation of a CIA-like agency in Europe, a mega database of all intelligence related to terrorism collected from all member states. This did not go down well with the French, British, German, Italian and surprisingly enough the Spanish authorities^²⁰⁸. Having the biggest intelligence resources at disposal, these countries voiced their strong opposition to providing their acquired intelligence capabilities, which would automatically mean sharing them with all member states^²⁰⁹.

The Commission produced a communication in response to the Declaration on Combating terrorism, with respect to expanding access of law enforcement officials to crucial information, in particular related to terrorism^²¹⁰. In June, Sweden proposed a draft Framework Decision on the simplifying the exchange of information and intelligence between law enforcement authorities of the Member States of the E, with the aim of making the principle of equivalent access legally binding^²¹¹. After long deliberations and clear reluctance to share data, a practice by now all too common to the EU, the framework decision^²¹² was adopted more than two years later in December 2006.

Spurred by the Madrid attacks and with the aim of achieving better coordination and cooperation among member states, a new post of EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator was created, which was filled by Mr. Gijs de Vries up until 2007. However even this did not prove to be an easy task, as this idea initiated by the Irish Presidency, was not welcomed by all the member states with enthusiasm. The UK, for instance, did not feel that such a ‘terrorism tsar’ was needed and even the European Commission expressed its reluctance by stating that the ‘EU often displayed a knee-jerk reaction calling for a "Mr. This" or "Mr. That"’^²¹³
Referring back to a point made in the March Declaration, with regards to the ESDP; some steps had been taken to make the ESDP more involved and expand its competences. This was achieved mainly through the Conceptual Framework on the ESDP dimension of the fight against terrorism^²¹⁴, adopted in November 2004. This document specified four main areas of action, which the ESDP would be responsible for, namely ‘prevention, protection, response and consequence management, and support to third countries in the fight against terrorism’^²¹⁵. To an extent, these courses of action reflect the solidarity expressed in the aftermath of the attacks.
In November also, within the JHA Council, EU’s justice and interior ministers concluded long-standing negotiations with an agreement on a set of goals in the sphere of security, freedom and justice.^²¹⁶ This five year plan, better known as ‘The Hague Programme’^²¹⁷ addresses ten key areas security and justice cooperation, to be implemented by 2010 and together with the European Security Strategy, it defines ‘Europe’s collective approach to security.’^²¹⁸Generally the provisions listed therein stress the importance of information sharing among others on anticipated threats, focus on the factors that contribute to fundamentalism, encourage the use of European bodies such as Europol and Eurojust and the principle of mutual recognition.

3.5 London

The wave of legislative action that was spurred by the Madrid bombings was rolling in at different speeds; though its momentum was arguably lost over the first months of 2005. The events of July 7^th 2005 injected this impetus back into the arena. July 7^th, now most commonly known as 7/7, was the day that the 3/11 scenario occurred all over again, this time at several locations in central London^²¹⁹. London was in the midst of celebrating their victory of being an Olympic-hosting city in 2012, news that was announced just one day prior to the tragic events. Meanwhile the four Al Qaeda-linked^²²⁰ suicide bombers were preparing themselves for the attack that would occur in the early hours of the following morning. On that fateful July day, at 8.30 the three bombers split up at the King’s Cross station^²²¹ and each carried explosives onto a different tube line, detonating them simultaneously shortly before 9 o’clock. At 9.47, the fourth bomber blew himself and 27 others up on a city bus, which was unusually crowded as a consequence of the underground closures in the aftermath of the previous bombings. Along with more than 700 casualties, 52 people lost their lives in the attack or shortly thereafter. The attack became even more shocking when it was found that the bombers were British Muslims, born and raised and alas also radicalised in the UK^²²².

The attacks, along with a copy-cat attempt^²²³ just two weeks later, represented the biggest wake up call yet, not only to the UK who was holding the EU presidency at the time, but to the EU in general. The wake up call was the dire need to step up the game and to realise the full implementation of the Action plan and other measures. The UK, which took up the presidency just six days prior to the attacks, took a prominent role in the EU response to 7/7. An Extraordinary JHA Council meeting was convened on July 13^th where it adopted the Council Declaration on the EU response to the London Bombings.^²²⁴ Here it was emphasised that the EU framework ‘for pursuing and investigation terrorists across borders’ had to be built upon^²²⁵ and strengthened, rather than coming up with a whole new framework without fulfilling previous obligations. In pursuance of this goal, the Council was to agree on outstanding Framework Decisions^²²⁶ as well as it would adopt Decisions such as on the exchange of information concerning terrorist offences^²²⁷. With regards to the tackling of the financial flows towards terrorism, several decisions and directives^²²⁸ and the agreement upon and adoption of these was given a clear deadline. In addition, the EU’s performance as a whole was to be reviewed and it was clarified to the member states that a thorough investigation within the financial system was a crucial part in the investigation of past and future terrorist attacks.^²²⁹ In this sense, it was to be ensured that the authorities of all member states have ‘robust powers’ to freeze assets.^²³⁰ Furthermore, the exchange of information and the overall intensification of judicial and law enforcement cooperation was encouraged. In light of British citizens perpetrating the attacks, at least partly, measures addressing the prevention of radicalisation and cooperation with third countries were to be strengthened and closely followed. Lastly, the Council also called upon member states to engage in regular terrorist attack exercises, in order to identify their shortcomings and deal with these^²³¹. The capabilities of each member state in emergency response would be collected and analysed by the Counter-terrorism coordinator together with the Commission, which would then be disseminated in order to share information about the prospective potential of responding to a terrorist attack, especially on more than one member state^²³².

In September, recalling the specifics of the Hague Programme, the Commission released a communication^²³³ which addressed factors contributing and/or leading to radicalization, setting out a combination of soft and hard measures to prevent radicalisation. It identified ‘an abusive interpretation of Islam’ as the peril which ran deep in many societies, including the European ones^²³⁴. Furthermore, it warned that this violent interpretation may effect those “European citizens, whose motivations defy simplistic categorisation; not being socially-excluded, socio-economically disadvantaged, unemployed or living in deprived suburbs of large cities or inner-city housing estates, or from immigrant families”^²³⁵, which was also a clear sign that tackling radicalisation was going to be a complex, multi-faceted and long-term task. On the basis of this communication, the Council adopted the European Union Strategy for Combating Radicalisation and Recruitment to Terrorism^²³⁶, which outlined the actions that the EU was going to undertake:

• disrupt the activities of the networks and individuals who draw people into terrorism;

• ensure that voices of mainstream opinion prevail over those of extremism;

• promote yet more vigorously security, justice, democracy and opportunity for all^²³⁷
Similarly to the Commission, the Council acknowledged that development assistance and cooperation with third countries was an essential part of preventing and combating violent radicalization and terrorism.^²³⁸

3.5.1 EU Counter-Terrorism strategy

Just six days later, a groundbreaking product of the EU’s strenuous efforts was finalised and revealed at the end of November; the European Union Strategy on Counter Terrorism.^²³⁹ The UK had advocated the idea of an EU counter-terrorism strategy ever since the 7/7 incident, arguing that the EU could absorb some provisions from individual member states’ strategies^²⁴⁰ and thereby streamline the abundance of measures into a comprehensive scheme. For instance, the UK has developed the so called CONTEST strategy^²⁴¹, which stands for prevention, pursuit, protection and preparedness.^²⁴² Rather similarly, the EU strategy on Counter-terrorism, which was adopted by the European Council on December 1^st,divides the strategy into four major objectives; to prevent, protect, pursue and respond. The Strategy was ultimately a fusion of the ‘patchwork of decisions and mechanisms’^²⁴³ which were becoming too many to control. The first objective addresses the problem of radicalisation and describes the steps that should be taken to tackle this problem, namely finding and dismantling sources of recruitment and the roots of radicalism. The aforementioned Strategy for Combating Radicalisation and Recruitment to Terrorism is incorporated and therefore complements this objective. The aim of protection encapsulates police and judicial cooperation, strengthened border controls and the protection of vulnerable infrastructure^²⁴⁴ and is supplemented by the Hague Programme. The third objective referred to the (cross border) prosecution of terrorists and disrupting the financial and physical links and ultimately the networks themselves. In addition, it repeated the call made to all member states to implement agreed European measures as well as ratify relevant international treaties and conventions, in order to ensure that its response is within a legal framework and is appropriate.^²⁴⁵ The response objective underlines the need to not only increase capabilities but to also share the extent of these capabilities, in the spirit of solidarity. Shaped like a double-levelled pillar house structure, these four objectives, which are to be pursued by the member states, take up the first floor. The ground floor is represented by the ‘EU added value’ which, divided into four pillars, represents the ways which the EU would assist member states achieve the above objectives.^²⁴⁶ EU assistance would consist of: ‘promoting international partnership, developing collective capabilities, promoting European cooperation and strengthening national capabilities.^²⁴⁷ In short, the Strategy’s goal is to achieve a two-fold extension in EU’s role, namely in ‘the institutional networking of member states’ foreign and domestic policies’ and ‘in coordinating the EU’s foreign and domestic policy with that of the individual member states’.^²⁴⁸ This clearly represented a shift from the intergovernmental to a trans-pillar spider-web like structure.

The implementation of the Strategy is overseen by the Permanent Representatives Committee (COREPER) and the contents of the Strategy are subject to a review by the European Council every six months.^²⁴⁹ In addition, an updated Action Plan^²⁵⁰ was to address the four objectives given to the member states and provide measures in more detail.^²⁵¹

Most recently, legislation concerned with terrorism was tabled in 2007 and passed in April 2008^²⁵², criminalizing three additional offences; public provocation to commit terrorist offences, recruitment for terrorism and training for terrorism. Until then, the latter two have been mentioned from the beginning of the EU anti-terrorist legislation era but were never officially criminalized. The three newly criminalised offences were encapsulated into a revised Framework Decision on combating terrorism. Criminalisation also applies to these offences perpetrated via the internet, which coincides with the ‘Check the web’^²⁵³ initiative convened by the German Presidency in 2007, as a response to the call of establishing ways to tackle recruitment and radicalisation through the Internet. The initiative aims to create or otherwise strengthen narrow cooperation between the member states in monitoring the internet.
The measures that were taken since 2001 had successes which are often cited as those resulting in several arrests in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK and also led to some disruptions of alleged terrorist plots in Denmark. On the other hand, major failures included the December 2001 attempted attack on a flight from Paris to Miami where the, Richard Reid, a British citizen, was able to smuggle a shoe bomb through airport security and attempted to use it to blow up the plane once it was airborne.

There is a general pattern to the EU efforts in developing and intensifying counter-terrorism policies and instruments, where these are at their peak after a terrorist attack actually occurs, as was seen with Madrid and London. When in August 2006, another terrorist plot was foiled, where it was discovered that several flights originating from the UK to the US were to be the targets, a political agreement was reached on the EU level which included measures for tighter cooperation and improvement and harmonization of air security.^²⁵⁴ Does this trend mean that EU needs another terrorist attack to start acting?

3.6 The Achilles’ heel in EU’s efforts to counter terrorism

The vague definition which was set out by the 2002 Framework decision may have been considered a success in that internally the EU managed to agree on such a sensitive but urgent issue. Nevertheless, if one scrutinizes the definition, like for instance Professor Thomas Weigend, and applies it strictly to the Madrid and London bombings, it is blatantly obvious that in fact these acts do not fall under the definition. This is particularly true with the provisions ‘may seriously damage a country or international organisation’ with the aim of ‘seriously destabilising or destroying the fundamental political , constitutional, economic or social structures of a country of international organisation’^²⁵⁵, which the London and Madrid attacks do not satisfy, again with a general emphasis that this is a strict application of the definition. These two examples, Weigend maintains, show that the applicability of the definition is reduced to ‘very few instances of truly disastrous terrorism’.^²⁵⁶

The pillar structure, which has proven to be more of a setback than a success was to some extent addressed by the Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, which was however bluntly rejected by France and The Netherlands in 2004 and has added to the general limitation of the EU and its actorness in the international arena, still lacking an EU-level legal personality.

In one of his many articles on this topic, Daniel Keohane points out the main weaknesses of the European Union and its efforts to counter terrorism. He, like many authors^²⁵⁷ does not fail to acknowledge that indeed the EU has made some giant steps since the 9/11 attacks but he also states that withstanding these changes, the real power still lies in the national government’s hands^²⁵⁸. Despite the existence of bodies such as Eurojust, which arguably has been effective and will be more so in the future partly due to the decision to strengthen it, as well as Europol, cooperation on cross border crime overwhelmingly remains a case of bilateral interaction^²⁵⁹. This leads to reveal one of the major, if not the biggest, flaws of the EU; the unwillingness to share information and to cede competence to the European institutions and bodies and also to other states. This is underlined by a lack of trust which is especially to as sensitive policy areas as are security and defence.

The lack of trust can further be demonstrated by circumstances in the aftermath of the 3/11 attacks, where several states were in total opposition to the creation of a CIA-like intelligence network, due to their reluctance of intelligence sharing with twenty odd other states^²⁶⁰. For reluctance was expressed profoundly by the German minister Otto Schily who argued that creation a new agency “would not be useful” and that rather “we have to network the intelligence services that exist”^²⁶¹. Likewise, French president Nicolas Sarkozy argues that “the creation of new institutions will only delay improvements on the ground”. David Blunkett, British Home Secretary topped off the criticism by advising that the focus and priority should e on the full implementation of the anti-terrorism measures adopted in the wake of 9/11, rather than the creation of new agencies. In reference to the European CIA initiative, Blunkett bluntly responded “We don’t want new institutions. What I am interested in is hard, political action”. By adding “let’s cut out the waffle and let's make sure that whatever we do, we're practicing what we preach at home" he clearly expressed his preference of strengthening national policies, rather than transposing them into the EU arena.^²⁶²

There is however widespread scepticism about serious intelligence gathering expressed by some EU officials, which they maintain is blatantly obvious from the differing view points of member states who ‘have huge institutional objections to countering terrorism’. Belgium, where intelligence services attaining authorization to tap phones has been extremely difficult, if not impossible, is a case in point. Sweden and Germany particularly require higher than average standards to freeze financial assets in relation to terrorism and the Austrian intelligence services are certainly not among the best."^²⁶³

A pattern seems to have developed in this sense, where national authorities want to downsize the number of states and agencies which would be able to have an insight into their information, plans, evidence and strategy.

The friction between member states is transposed from or to, depending on how one looks at it, the EU agencies as well. For instance, in the 2007 report on the implementation of the Strategy for Combating Radicalisation and Recruitment, the European Council and Commission showed uneven implementation trend and initiatives, which pointed to the fact that ‘cooperation remained limited to exchange of information on a limited scale’.^²⁶⁴

Overall, Keohane identifies a quintessential paradox on which the EU policy in this area is based. On the one hand, member states boast their willingness to fight terrorism and to cooperate with each other, but at the same time they express over reluctance to withhold information and data, provide resources and give the EU concrete powers^²⁶⁵. Ironically these, among other considerable factors, are crucial to a fruitful cooperation within the EU, which in turn would make it more plausible for the EU to not only represent but most importantly act as a unitary international actor. In another weakness-identifying article, Keohane explains why member states are generally sceptical about giving up or sharing their powers; they see it as too big a big risk in having a supranational body impeding in their ‘existing laws, national security practices and relationships with third countries’^²⁶⁶ and ultimately experiencing what feels like losing control over decision making.

Another flaw which has considerable impact on the smooth running of the machinery is the fact that a body which has competence to refer member states which fail to comply with ‘EU criminal legislation aimed at preventing terrorism’^²⁶⁷ to the ECJ, does not in fact exist. The abovementioned and plenty more flaws are connected and directly contribute or even results in serious coherence problems within the EU. Annegret Bendiek identifies several levels of incoherence. The horizontal level is characterized by the incoherence between there various policies within the framework of counter-terrorism^²⁶⁸. Although this has been addressed and arguably partly solved by the 2005 Counter-terrorism Strategy nevertheless the problem is understandably much larger and deeper and thus needs a long-term remedy. The institutional incoherence refers to the discrepancies in the cooperation between the pillar structure, the EU bodies and the external EU framework.^²⁶⁹ The third and last coherence concern is found in the vertical line of cooperation between the EU and its presently 27 member states and their individual policies.^²⁷⁰

Without knowing the actual competencies of the Counter-terrorism Coordinator, one would assume that the post is influential, superior and in a way all-encompassing as regards the counter-terrorism policy. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth; the post is more symbolic than anything else; coordinator, presently Mr. Gilles de Kerchove, has no space for budgetary manoeuvre, no right of initiation and execution of EU legislation and even no weighted influence in agenda setting^²⁷¹.
IV. EU and US: friends, enemies or ‘frenemies’?
4.1 Framing the relationship in the post 9/11 era
The transatlantic relationship over the past decades and certainly since the end of the Cold War can be characterised by at least two of the above labels, depending on the time, place and issue one is talking about. Most recently, the EU and US have been on opposite sides of the spectrum on several landmark issues such as the International Criminal Court, The Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treat, the ban on anti-personnel land mines, the Biodiversity Treat, a verification mechanism for the Biological Weapons Control Treaty, to mention a few^²⁷². These are examples of issues that have polarized the EU and US to great extents. The fight against terrorism is not included in this list on purpose because this is an issue which, although deeply contentious and divisive, has not as a whole had completely polarizing effects on the EU-US relationship.
4.2 The immediate convergence
One of the very first apparent reasons, which was a preordained component of transatlantic cooperation, was the fact that the 9/11 attacks were planned and prepared in Hamburg. The pledge of solidarity across Europe showed an unprecedented wave of the will to contribute in any way to tackling those who were responsible for the atrocious attacks. As was already mentioned, the bids for all necessary resources were rolling in immediately and a mere 24 hours after the attacks another event, which will surely have its place in history books, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) expression of will to devote itself to countering terrorism. Article 5, which was, just like the motive for the creation of NATO, designed to address a possible attack by the Soviet Union, was invoked for the first time in NATO’s sixty year history. Despite the fact that Article 5, which represents the famous ‘an attack on one is an attack on all’ or in other words the collective security commitment, has quite tight conditions^²⁷³ to be met but the fact that it was invoked in the first place was unparalleled. NATO’s relevance was almost silenced at the beginning of the 1990s when the Cold War had ended and more importantly the Soviet Union had collapsed, the latter before its disintegration being the main motive behind the creation of NATO. Margaret Thatcher’s statement that “just because you do not have burglars in your neighbourhood, does not mean you do not need an insurance policy” was especially applicable in the Balkan crisis that plagued the 1990s and beginning of the 21^st century. In the aftermath of 9/11, NATO was eager to prove its relevance and its ability to fight terrorism, shown by the fact that it was ready to contribute to a war which was completely ‘out of area’.^²⁷⁴ NATO officially became an ‘organization with global reach’^²⁷⁵ and transformed into a collective security agency^²⁷⁶ as a result of the expansion of its mandate in the Prague Summit in 2002, where among other developments, the formation of a NATO Response Force (NRF) was agreed upon.

4.3 The disengagement

The intense love affair which began unexpectedly in the wake of 9/11 did not last very long and in fact it ended almost as quickly as it began. The aim of the following paragraphs is to describe the main events and reasons which have led to intensified transatlantic tensions in the 21^st century. As it soon turned out, the US seemed to largely ignore the resources it was offered in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. It clearly showed its Kosovo-learned view that ‘friends were politically necessary but militarily problematic’.^²⁷⁷ This was ‘officially’ revealed for the first time in the execution of Operation Enduring Freedom, where the US only used its troops, with the exception of some UK forces. NATO’s invocation of article 5 was thus bypassed. This was evidently not something that was necessarily welcomed nor understood by the Europeans, leading to an era of heightened transatlantic tensions, less than a month after an unprecedented atmosphere of solidarity.

NATO is a good example which can be used to illustrate the dissimilar EU and US ways of doing things. The above example shows that the US was reluctant to execute its policies with the use of organizations such as NATO, and rather as has been mentioned several times throughout this paper, the US wanted to have full control over its policies instead of being, in its view, subjugated by working under the aegis of NATO or the UN. In other words, it preferred unilateralism over multilateralism and the biggest stretch it would make in cooperation would be through the channels of bilateralism with hand picked countries.^²⁷⁸

The analogy of “Americans cook the dinner and Europeans do the dishes”^²⁷⁹ which has its origins in the 1990s chain of Yugoslav wars, seemed to be applicable this time as well and apparent from the beginning, when US spokespersons were not shy in admitting that after the ultimate goal of hunting bin Laden down was achieved, ‘Washington had no intention of remaining long in Afghanistan to engage in nation-building’.^²⁸⁰ Partly as a result of this, the tension had intensified by the mid November 2001^²⁸¹, barely a month after 9/11; this clearly was not a good sign for the possibility or hope of a long term coalition formation and its preservation in the future. Another part of the reason was that it was ever clearer to the Europeans ways differed substantially from those of the Americans.
By the time the EU officials were applauding the adoption of the two Framework decisions of June 2002, protesters in major European cities from Madrid to Amsterdam to London were marching to express their opposition to the war in Iraq when it was revealed that the US was seriously contemplating using force with the aim of disarming Iraq. The protests went beyond the strong disapproval of the looming war not only because these people saw the use of force as an exacerbation of events more than anything else, not only but particularly because it was justified by the Bush administration as being an indispensible part of the war on terror, when really the protesters believed that the Bush administration was acting out of self-interest and uncontrollable hunger for oil. But it was not only ordinary people who protested. The support of official levels of government of many countries had started breaking away even as soon as the readiness and the will of the Bush administration to engage in pre-emptive action became apparent. It is often said that the US pre-emptive option had turned into a ‘cardinal principle of its foreign policy’^²⁸² as could be seen from the outset of Bush’s ‘axis of evil’ speech and the war that, by the end of 2003, was all but imminent. Significantly it is also often said that the transatlantic rift that was created as result of the decision to invade Iraq before evidence was provided that it did indeed possess WMD, was the widest since the end of the Cold War. The opening of a rift of such unprecedented girth was already predicted by Jonathan Freedland when he described the EU reactions to Bush’s axis of evil speech back in the beginning of 2002.^²⁸³ It is thus appropriate to note that Iran was a significant reason for substantial EU-US rivalry, especially at a point when Iran was singled out as a sponsor or terror by the US but considered a possible trade and cooperation partner by the EU.^²⁸⁴

At the same time, the sharp distinction between Atlanticists and Europeanists or between ‘New Europe’ and ‘Old Europe’ seems a little more than slightly hypocritical, due to the fact that just because some countries did not support the war in Iraq did not mean that they were, from then on, the biggest rivals of the US. A good example are France and Germany, who were the leaders of the anti-war camp but at the same time continued providing the US with airspace, ports and roads.^²⁸⁵ The transatlantic rift was further reinforced by the Germany, France and Belgium-led blockade of NATO military planning under article 5, with the intention of preventing a possible missile attack originating from Iraq destined for Turkey.^²⁸⁶ This clearly showed that Europe was ready to put its foot down in opposition to US policy instead of being a loyal follower no matter what.^²⁸⁷

4.6 Points of convergence
Before dismissing the transatlantic relationship as irreparable or even subject to no cooperation whatsoever, one has to point out the issues and policies that the EU and US have been able to agree on in the post 9/11 era. As has already been mentioned, the EU had stipulated the need to cooperate with the US in order to maximise each other’s security. This was expressed in the EU-US Ministerial Statement^²⁸⁸ issued on September 20^th 2001, where it was stipulated that the two would focus on cooperation in a number of issue areas, such as air and sea security, police and judicial cooperation, freezing of assets and strengthened border controls. The first steps were taken in the transportation sector, with a focus on air and sea transport. The US initiated Container Security Initiative (CIS)

An agreement^²⁸⁹ was reached between the US and Europol in December 2001, whereby the sharing of information of strategic nature, meaning threat assessments and analysis.^²⁹⁰ In order to facilitate cooperation and look for ways to improve capabilities on each side, in 2002 liaison officers were dispatched to Washington and an FBI officer was stationed in The Hague. Likewise, there is a US liaison officer in Eurojust in order to assist with matters of judicial nature, specifically with regards to requests for mutual legal assistance. The EU and US have differing levels of protection of personal data, whereby the former maintains much higher authorization threshold levels compared to the latter. Here historical experience plays a significant role, specifically with regards to countries that were directly confronted with communism fascism in particular.^²⁹¹ Consequently, the second US-Europol agreement which would allow the sharing of information of personal nature was not as easily reached as the first one. Despite the obstacles and extensive debates, an agreement^²⁹² was reached in December 2002 where the EU compromised on some provisions but voiced some reservations on others. For instance, a specific set of data could only be used for the investigation that it has been requested for.^²⁹³ In this way thus, the EU was able to retain some safeguards which would satisfy its strict legal requirements.

A particularly revolutionary agreement was reached in June 2003, whereby the EU and US agreed to cooperate more profoundly in criminal law matters, specifically with regards to extradition and mutual legal assistance. Other instruments included the European agreement to the Container Security Initiative, which the US tabled in January 2002.^²⁹⁴ The problem which typically arose with any kind of cooperation, including Transatlantic dialogues on border and transport security, launched in 2004, was that the EU does not have the same security framework and has differing rules to that of the US. For instance, as was mentioned before the US completely reorganized its homeland security and created new departments to attempt better coordination within its agencies. The EU however never attempted such a reorganization including the in the national security departments of individual member states, at least not the extent of the US. This does meant that often, the US did not have an appropriate counterpart agency or department in the EU, which posed along with other aforementioned issues posed further obstacles to cooperation.^²⁹⁵ Nevertheless, some of these obstacles were successfully overcome or avoided as can be seen in the yet another breaking-point event; a joint declaration on combating terrorism, in 2004. Other successful examples of cooperation include the cooperation and increased involvement in the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and most recently in the conclusion of the Transfer of Passenger Name Records in 2007.^²⁹⁶

4.5 Characterizing the diversity

Howorth points out four major divergences; Europeans wanted political solutions, humanitarian relief, a balanced Middle East peace process and a long-term commitment to the restoration of Afghanistan.^²⁹⁷ The corresponding policy of the US was however the use of military action, an exacerbation of the war on terrorism, ‘blanket support’ for Israel and whatever-it-takes hunt for bin Laden.^²⁹⁸

A good illustration of the major differences between the EU and US approaches to terrorism can also be derived from a comparison of their security strategies. The biggest difference is perhaps the pre-emptive clause and unilateralism which are absent in the EU document but very present in its US counterpart. The same goes for the use of force which is seen as a last resort. Furthermore, the threats in the EU strategy are more generic and the way to tackling them is through coordination, cooperation and building partnerships.^²⁹⁹ In this sense, the US concentrates on military means to tackle most of the threats it recognises, while the EU sets its focus on diplomatic, economic and judicial means with the use of military somewhere in the background. Attention should also be paid to the EU counter-terrorism strategy, which considers prevention of terrorism, clearly signalising that it does not view terrorism as an isolated phenomenon and so preventing other interrelated causes is a priority and is thus incorporated into the first pillar of the structure. This is quite different from the US approach which unlike Europe does not prioritize dealing with socio-economic and political root causes of terrorism,^³⁰⁰ although admittedly this was a little bit more present in the 2006 updated version of the US strategy. When President Bush declared: ‘We’re fighting the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan and across the world so we do not have to face them here at home’^³⁰¹ the Europeans reacted with the opposite reflection: ‘we’re fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and doing so the number of would-be terrorists at home increases’.^³⁰²

4.6 Thoughts for the future
Considering the information that was given in the above paragraphs as well as in the preceding chapters, it is much simpler to refute Kori Schake’s prediction^³⁰³ about the future of transatlantic relations, ever more so, with the coming of Barack Obama to power. The prediction that she had made in November 2007, when the elections results were far from being clear and when there was no sign of Bush’s unilateralist approach and policy faltering away, was that the fracture between the US and Europe and the EU in particular would grow deeper as well as wider. On the one hand, despite the Bush administration’s claims that cooperation was a priority, in particular with regards to the reconstruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, unilateralism seemed to almost always take precedence and the coalition building was rather replaced by coalition destruction. Further yet, Schake asserts that the US is not likely to abandon its policies with regard to military means, homeland security and going at it alone and this thus leads her to conclude that it is highly unlikely that the US would ‘waste’ resources on cooperation and coordination with the EU^³⁰⁴, perhaps less applicably so to individual member states on a bilateralism basis which has been far more common than full out cooperation with the EU. On the other hand, Schake points to the fact that the Europeans were hoping for a US adaption to the European way of war, which of course seems quite a lunatic thought having read the information provided above. The political atmosphere up until and including November 2007 is quite likely to have led to Schake’s pessimistic and far-reaching conclusion that, providing the transatlantic rift will keep on expanding like she has argued throughout her paper, the near future may observe a ‘return to the transatlantic burden-sharing debates of the 1970s, in which the US linked its participation in military operations to the proportion of European contributors’.^³⁰⁵ The bleak future predicted by Schake is to some extent challenged by the new sense of cooperating and belonging between the US and Europe, in most part due to the new administration. The skewing towards constructive diplomacy and addressing crucial issues such as reconstruction of volatile states and restart of the Middle East peace process signposts the desire and the need to address root causes of terrorism, a policy element which the old continent had been praising since the very beginning.^³⁰⁶
Similarly, the vision of Robert Kagan could, at least in part, be challenged. In arguing why the US and Europe see the world differently^³⁰⁷, Kagan states that ‘they agree on little and understand one another less and less’ and more importantly for the sake of the author’s argument here ‘this state of affairs is not transitory- the product of one American election or one catastrophic event’^³⁰⁸. The fact that Kagan mentions that even the election of a new president will not budge the seemingly static situation is particularly advantageous to my challenge of his argument. It would be naïve to say that the coming to power of Obama can be used to completely refute this argument; however it could be said that it is enough to cause a little earthquake to its foundations. The almost revolutionary changes which had taken place in the US in the past three months have obviously not only been left within the US and within the much mentioned Afghanistan and Pakistan. On the contrary, changes have also been felt by the US allies and most relevantly here, by Europe. It is true that the former administration did mention cooperation as a part of their national strategy; however this international cooperation was never much endorsed. Obama’s administration seems to have changed this trend and particularly by his team’s European tour, his support seems to be cemented with at least some of the Europeans. Perhaps this has also to do with the fact that, at least until now, the new administration has sky high approval rates compared to its predecessor. The truth remains that much differences still exist between the US and the EU and it must be given to Kagan that he is quite right in stating that this is not a temporary situation however I would think it would be more correct to say that things will not change overnight rather than never, as Kagan asserts.

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