Europe’s security challenges

European security services nowadays are facing the serious challenge of dealing with threats, in view of the lack of coordination among various branches of security services in Europe or within the same country.

After World War II, Europe effectively managed to establish a civic society free of violence; this is being threatened today.

Europe needs to recognise the risks that resulted from the confrontation with extremism and terrorism, particularly when Daesh has made an open invitation to everybody to move, so it can use most available elements, from activating dormant cells to exploiting the frustration of some Arabs and Muslims who failed to get integrated in the European societies and of many others.

The phase through which the world is currently going is complicated and most of the risk elements are interconnected.

Terrorism, including tools and persons, moves in a reverse motion, from Europe to the Middle East.

This phenomenon has the power to defy highly advanced technological mechanisms.

Arabic is not anymore the language used by terrorists; many other different languages are being spoken, terrorists have Western passports which give them freedom to move around and often they break the stereotypical image, which changes today to include light-coloured individuals that are not of Arab origin.

Therefore, it is wrong to think that historic defensive measures would be able to confine the risk or limit terrorists’ mobility.

Visa restrictions would decrease the number of legally permitted visitors to EU, but not of those who already got them legitimately or otherwise.

The security problems the Middle East faces today are moved to Europe by internal elements, often born and raised in Europe.

This should push everybody to review the policies that have made many extremists enjoy freedom of speech to build an empire of hatred and extremism in peaceful societies, making the youth power a real enemy of the European society where they utterly live and enjoy having citizenship.

A new strategy of cooperation on security and the fight against terrorism should take into consideration the need to drain off the sources of conflicts in the Middle East. 

Such strategy should include all the places that breed terrorism, above all, Syria.

Everybody should be convinced of the urgent need to terminate the political exploitation of the crises in the region before facing the new terrorist groups that effectively operate there.

This poses serious challenges to the security services that are already seriously involved in containing weapon and drug smuggling, human trafficking, trafficking in human organs, money laundering and others.

In fact, several security reports highlight the risk of certain linkage between those groups and the terrorists groups operating in Syria and Iraq.

The new situation put the capacity of the security system to a real test.

The current situation imposes a new reality that should make all countries take appropriate measures to deal with the existing crisis and its aftershocks.

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