Europe flies the flag of unity in name only

While the bombings in Paris and Brussels are being seen as an attack on Europe as a whole, forging a collective EU response to global terrorism will be very difficult, writes Lucian Kim

Many Europeans immediately took the Brussels bombings on Tuesday as an assault on Europe itself. After all, the Belgian capital has long been synonymous with the European Union, and one bombing target was a metro station just steps from major EU institutions.

French president François Hollande declared: “The whole of Europe has been hit.” Germany’s Der Spiegel titled its lead story ‘Terror hits EU power centre”. Declarations of solidarity clogged the internet from across Europe.

Assuming that the collective Europe has been attacked, can it respond as one?

“No,” said John Kornblum, a former US ambassador to Germany. “Europe is dysfunctional. A response is not just tightening border control but coming up with a security strategy. Up to now, to be Europe meant to be more peaceful than everybody else.”

Kornblum, who has been involved in transatlantic relations since the 1970s, speaks out of frustration, not schadenfreude. Europeans are the first to admit that big strides in the EU’s political and economic integration have outpaced co-operation in law enforcement and security.

There still isn’t a common database that contains the names of all terrorism suspects and Europeans who have joined organisations such as Islamic State, Peter Neumann, a security expert at London’s King College, said on German ARD television Tuesday night.

“Everybody wants information from others,” Neumann said, “but nobody wants to share. Everybody wants co-ordination, but nobody wants to be co-ordinated. If you want freedom of movement in Europe, you also need to ensure the seamless co-operation among security agencies.”

Just as the Greek debt crisis exposed the inadequacies of the euro — namely, the absence of an overall European fiscal policy — the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels demonstrate the shortcomings of borderless travel.

The 1990 Schengen Agreement opening EU internal borders was eventually signed by 26 European countries to encourage wider mobility and trade. The possibility that terrorists or undocumented migrants might take advantage didn’t fit into the image of an enlightened postwar Europe. Now, the refugee crisis is showing that the EU barely controls its external borders.

Different rules that govern competing local and national law enforcement agencies make a co-ordinated response to the Brussels attack complicated. Another challenge is that the traditionally separate areas of domestic security and external defence have become blurred by international terrorist networks.

In the past, terrorism in Europe was largely seen in terms of national threats from groups such as Basque separatists in Spain or the IRA in the UK. The emergence of al Qaeda and Islamic State changed that view dramatically, said Nicolas Tenzer, head of the Center for Study and Research on Political Decision, a Paris think tank.

Europe, Tenzer said, is unlikely to react to the Brussels attacks as a whole. Yet, the major powers — including Britain, France, Germany, and the Netherlands — will probably step up co-operation, he said, adding that it’s important to distinguish between the exchange of information and operational co-operation.

“Ad hoc operations are already possible between police departments,” he said. “But large-scale co-operation, as it sometimes exists on the battlefield, may be more difficult with many countries.”

The crux of Europe’s quandary in fighting global terrorism mirrors its problems with a shared foreign policy or common currency: A reluctance to sacrifice even more sovereignty on the altar of EU unity. Add Europe’s lack of tactical capabilities and increased US isolationism, and Europe begins to look vulnerable.

“It’s very dangerous for Europe because they need the United States,” said Kornblum. “They’ve been neglecting security interests for at least 10 years.”

In a recent Atlantic magazine interview, US president Barack Obama criticised European powers as “free riders” because of their dependence on Washington for security. Donald Trump, front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, echoed that sentiment this week as he questioned the billions of dollars the Pentagon spends on defending countries such as Germany.

The S does in fact play a crucial role for European security. It is key not only in intelligence-gathering but in its ability to deliver military strikes around the world.

“Better police work, co-ordinated among EU members, must certainly be one part of the answer,” said Ulrich Speck, a senior fellow at the Transatlantic Academy in Washington. “But the other part has to do much more with Syria. With such a devastating war in its immediate neighbourhood, Europe cannot live in peace.”

The conflict in Syria helped create the current refugee crisis and is one source of the extremism espoused by terrorists in Europe. Yet the EU has neither the will nor the means for deeper engagement in the Middle East.

“Berlin and Paris should jointly take the lead, in close co-operation with London,” said Speck. “But so far they’re just waiting for Washington. The United States is unwilling to commit serious resources — and is geographically too far away to feel the spillover effects.”

Europe’s failure to come up with a consolidated response to terrorism bears risks not just for the European Union, but also for the entire postwar transatlantic alliance.

“It’s not only a question about EU institutions, but about trust in the system,” said Roderich Kiesewetter, a member of the German parliament. “It’s also a psychological question.”

Given existing centrifugal forces in the EU, citizens may lose even more faith if they don’t see an effective EU reaction to terrorist attacks, Kiesewetter said, which could push many to support parties on the political extremes. What’s more, if Washington becomes engrossed in its own affairs, some forces in Europe might well seek closer accommodation with Russia.

For transatlanticists, a European response automatically becomes an American one as well.