Increased Internet surveillance and tighter border checks are “urgently” needed to foil jihadist attacks of the sort that rocked Paris this week, European, US and Canadian security ministers agreed Sunday.
The gathering of interior and justice ministers at the French interior ministry was held before a massive anti-terror march in Paris that included dozens of foreign leaders, reported AFP.
A joint statement by the ministers — representing 11 EU nations including France, Britain, Germany, Sweden and Poland, as well as the European commissioner for migration and home affairs, and US Attorney General Eric Holder — emphasized their “determination to fight together against terrorism”.
They said it was “essential” that major Internet providers cooperate with governments in closely monitoring and, if necessary, removing online content “that aims to incite hatred and terror.”
They also want to “step up the detection and screening of travel movements of European nationals” leaving or entering the EU’s external borders, and modify Europe’s internal Schengen freedom-of-movement rules to widen information sharing and subject suspect passengers to greater checks.
They saw a “crucial and urgent need” to establish an EU-wide database of passenger information for travel inside Europe and for flights leaving or entering the 28-nation bloc.
The proposed measures are to be discussed further at a February 12 EU summit focused on reinforcing security.
Holder announced a broader February 18 summit in Washington to be hosted by US President Barack Obama.
The steps were unveiled after three days of carnage in Paris by three gunmen who claimed allegiance to Al-Qaeda in Yemen and the rival Islamic State group. The violence began with a bloody attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, when two of the gunmen killed 12 people. Twin assaults by French commandos on the gunmen holed up in two separate locations — in a town outside Paris and in a kosher supermarket in the capital — ended with the Islamists’ deaths on Friday, as well as the murder of four hostages.
