Top European Union officials today said, on the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks, that the 25-nation bloc was more determined than ever to fight terrorism, and that closer co-operation was key to thwarting new attacks.
In Brussels, Belgium, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Europe was “more determined than ever to tackle the causes and the consequences of global terrorism”.
He said in a statement that Washington and Brussels needed to share more information in hunting down terror suspects, and in preventing the recruitment of potential terrorists.
EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini, in a letter to his US counterpart, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, said the EU was “better prepared to respond than we were five years ago,” but said that the foiling in August of a terror plot to blow up trans-Atlantic flights showed that more co-operation was needed.
He said priorities such as fighting radicalisation of youth, monitoring the use of the internet by terrorists and the prevention and detection of the misuse of explosives were new priorities.