European Commission
Malmström

Today I participated in a conference organised by the Danish EU Presidency on radicalisation and de-radicalisation of people at risk of being drawn into violent extremism. The discussions focused on methods to identify young people at risk and on exit strategies. The Danes are experienced in these matters and we got to listen to stories from young people about how they escaped from their past as right-wing extremists or as members of violent Islamist movements. It was extremely moving.

Many people from the RAN network were also at the conference. There are now eight working groups within the RAN network that are in full swing and they hope to present some conclusions in the autumn in connection with a ministerial conference.

You can read my speech from today’s conference here.

Now I am off to Gothenburg where I will celebrate Europe Day tomorrow by participating in various events. There will be a breakfast with officials from the city of Gothenburg and I will meet students and participate in a public hearing.

Press Conference after the meeting

The rain was pouring down when we, a bit delayed, arrived to Luxembourg this morning. The road construction made the traffic slow down drastically. It was the first time the Council was held in the new Council building in Luxembourg, which is much nicer than the old one. However the coffee served in the meeting room is not any better than it was in the old building.

The Danish Presidency took us efficiently through the meeting agenda and there were many interesting political discussions. We discussed important issues such as migration flows, the asylum package and cooperation with Turkey for example. We also had a very good discussion on terrorism deriving from current threat assessments and on the proposals on better registration of explosives, the PNR proposal and the preventive measures to combat terrorism i.e. anti-radicalisation. These so called lone wolfs with extremist ideologies, for example Anders Breivik or Mohamed Merah in Toulouse, are today for many member countries the biggest threat. Last year I launched the Anti Radicalisation Network in order to give a platform for experts on this subject, you can read more about the network here.

There was of course also a discussion about the French-German letter on Schengen that all member states had received ahead of the meeting. This should be seen in light of the election campaign in France but Schengen is far too important to be subject for such a debate. The Commission presented a proposal in September to strengthen Schengen, introducing better monitoring and evaluation, in order to make sure that Schengen is not taken hostage and that a reintroduction of border control is not used for domestic political reasons.

If borders are to be temporary reintroduced this must be as a last resort and if it is necessary it  should a common decision, taken at the European level. Schengen is one of the most concrete achievements for the approx 400 million citizens and we have to be very careful in order not to destroy the freedom of movement.

I will stay in Luxembourg over night to meet with the Justice Ministers tomorrow morning to discuss freezing and confiscation of criminal assets.

I have been in Tallinn today, where I have inaugurated the new IT Agency that will make sure that the EU IT systems, the Schengen Information System (SIS) and the Visa Information System (VIS), operate properly. You can read my speech here.

During the day, I also had other meetings, with the Minister of Interior Ken Marti Vaher, for example, to discuss the IT Agency, asylum and the ongoing negotiations on Schengen. I also had a meeting with the Prime Minister and a lunch with an old friend of mine, Toomas Ilves, who is now President of Estonia. We were both Members of the European Parliament from 1999-2004 and we worked a lot together in the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Estonia is a highly digital country, 99 % of the Estonian citizens do their bank errands online. Already in 2000 the government had meetings without printed papers and when some of the Ministers could not be physically present, they held virtual meetings instead. Most of the community services are also online. The IT Agency is therefore very well placed.

The horrific killings in Toulouse once again demonstrate how vulnerable we are against extremists and how crucial it is to continue our fight against violent radicalisation. Once again, we see the huge problem with access to weapons in the EU. I grieve the deaths of the victims and my thoughts are with their families.

Today, as the previous two years, I spoke at a commemoration event ahead of the European Day for victims of terrorism, on Sunday, the 11th of March.

I spoke about the tragic events in Norway last year which led to the death of so many young people. These painful experiences remind us that the threat of terrorism remains very real and that we have to actively work to combat terrorism. We must not only undermine the efforts of terrorists to radicalise our youth and recruit new members, we must also counter their message of destruction and help those who, like Breivik, risk choosing a hateful, radical path.

This is one of the key priorities of my mandate as European Commissioner and is also the reason why I launched the Radicalisation Awareness Network last year. The Network is now working in different groups and I am hoping to already see recommendations and conclusions this summer, ahead of the big Ministerial Conference that I will host in October.

The participants today were survivors and people who have all lost someone due to terrorist activities. There were many very emotional stories told at the event that made a big impact. A young girl told us about the day when, on the way to school, she got her legs blown off by an ETA bomb. She told us about her life today and how she is competing as a skier in the Paralympics. There was also a young survivor form the bombs that went off in London, victims of the Red Brigade activities and a French journalist held hostage in Lebanon, who told us about their experiences.

The survivors will continue to play an important role in countering terrorism and spreading a message of non-violence and reconciliation to prevent others from suffering – it was therefore very important to meet with them today.

On Sunday the 11 of September, 10 years will have past since the horrible attacks in New York. The day will of course be commemorated all around the world. The day brings back a lot of memories and I imagine we all still remember what we were doing the day of the attack, when the planes flew into the World Trade Centre towers, and nearly 3,000 people died. Terrorism still remains a threat today. Increasingly, attacks are taking place where the terrorist is a single person. We do not know enough to fully understand the processes that lead to radicalisation and make people commit violence, be their acts motivated by religious, left- or right extremism.

It is therefore of particular importance for me to be able to launch the Radicalisation Awareness Network today, which will bring people together who are working at the local level to prevent radicalisation. All over Europe there are field workers, researchers, teachers, community leaders, religious and youth leaders who are working to try to identify and help individuals that risk becoming radicalized and committing violent acts. Today we are connecting these people in a European network. The network will share methods and experiences but also assist the Commission and Member States in preventing terrorism. The Commission funds a secretariat that will assist the Network. Of course you can never find completely foolproof methods to prevent terrorism but I believe that this network can serve as an extremely important tool in preventive work. In addition to representatives from Member States, Norway was also invited to join the network so that others might learn something from their horrific experiences from this summer. You can read my speech here and see the Press Conference here.

The corridors in Brussels are yet again filled with people hurrying off to meetings and the summer already seems far away. It will be an intense autumn, with proposals on Schengen, the Asylum Package, Mobility Partnerships with the countries in Northern Africa, visa issues, radicalisation and freezing of criminal’s assets.

The College of Commissioners are meeting today and tomorrow to discuss the upcoming issues for the autumn. There will of course be discussion on Libya, the economical crisis and the tragic events in Norway.

It is hard to think about anything else than our Norwegian friends nowadays. This morning I gave a phone call to the Polish Minister for the Interior Jerzy Miller. Poland is chairing the EU Ministerial Council since some weeks back and they will host the next Justice and Home Affairs Council on 22-23 September. I told him what the Commission and Europol have done so far following the awful terrorist attacks in Norway; we were early in contact with the Norwegian authorities and offered them our help and support.

On 9 September we are planning to launch the anti-radicalisation network that I wrote about yesterday. It will counter every form of radicalisation – be it religious, political, and ideological. I suggested to my Polish colleague that we put radicalisation on the agenda for the next Council meeting and that we invite Norway to take part in the discussions in order to share their experiences and get support from colleagues around Europe. We will also invite a representative of the network to talk to the ministers and give insight into their work and the efforts on the ground. To counter violent extremism and radicalisation is a challenge that we need to take on together in Europe.

The grief and the shock are still substantial after the terror acts in Norway. We are all desperately trying to understand why this happened. Testimonies from the survivals from Utöya seem like they are taken from a nightmare. Like many others I am impressed by the leadership of the Norwegian Prime Minister in this difficult situation. It is extremely important to stand up for the open society and not be frightened to silence.

In the investigations of the horrendous terror deed it has become known that the person who claims to be responsible has been working for years on some sort of manifesto saying that Norway and Europe shall be “cleansed” from multiculturalism and from Islam. This manifesto is a product of a very disturbed man, but unfortunately we recognise some of these sentiments in Europe today. I have many times expressed my concern over xenophobic parties who build their unfortunately quite successful rhetoric on negative opinions on Islam and other so called threats against society. This creates a very negative environment, and sadly there are too few leaders today who stand up for diversity and for the importance of having open, democratic, and tolerant societies where everybody is welcome.

Thankfully it is uncommon to go from words to such horrendous deeds like the ones that Anders Behring Breivik is suspected for having committed, but this shows how important it is to work against radicalisation in all its forms. Last fall, the European Commission initiated a more systematic cooperation against radicalisation. In November last year I presented an Internal Security Strategy for the EU, where anti-radicalisation is listed as one of our priorities. The aim is to gather people from across the EU who work with these issues on the ground – researchers, social workers, religious leaders, youth leaders, policemen, and others – to exchange ideas and experiences. The first meetings already took place and we are planning to formally launch the anti-radicalisation network in September. The project will receive about four million Euros during the coming years. I have now seen to it that also our Norwegian colleagues are invited to participate in this network. Europol is also working against radicalisation, and there is work ongoing in several Member States. It is extremely important that we work with preventive measures in order to stop people with extreme ideologies to go from words to action.

Moreover, it seems like the man suspected of these crimes has also constructed the bomb that went off by the government offices in Oslo. It is far too easy today to get hold of substances that can be used as precursors in making home made explosives. The Oslo bomber seems to have used fertilizers, which is one of the most common substances within this area (another one is hydrogen peroxide, which is the active substance in hair bleach and was used in the London bombings in the summer of 2005). Last September I put forward a proposal which would require people to get specific licences in order to by large quantities of such substances, and that such large purchases must be reported. The proposal would also mean that some dangerous substances would be banned and that the concentration of other substances must be reduced. Legislation can of course not be the cure for all risks of acts of violence, crime or terrorism, but by introducing common regulations across the EU we can make it harder for malicious persons to make these dangerous explosives.

2011-05-02 Early this morning I received the news that Osama Bin Laden was killed in an American military operation last night. It would have been preferred to see Osama Bin Laden before a court but the operation had another ending. Bin Laden’s death is of course stirring up a lot of emotions all over the world and we are yet again reminded of the 11 September attacks, ten years ago, when about 3000 people were killed. It also reminds us of the hundreds of other victims that have been killed in the name of Al-Qaeda in the years after the 11 September attacks. Bin Laden was an important symbol for the terror group Al-Qaeda and he has in many ways been the face of terrorism for many people. But what his death will mean for Al-Qaeda, who already has been weakened, and what – if any – consequences it may have on the fight against terrorism remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that the terror threat still remains.

From the Commission side, we are continuously working on preventing and countering terrorism. I’ve said it before, but it deserves to be repeated: the fight against terrorism must not be too event driven. It is extremely important to increase cooperation between Member States in this area and we are also supporting the Member States in preventing radicalisation in all forms and shapes: left- or right-wing extremism as well as religious fundamentalism. Last year I proposed better regulation to limit access to certain chemicals that could be used for homemade explosives. We are also preparing a proposal on how to track terrorists’ assets with a European system, instead of sending data to the US, as it’s being done today.