Abstract:
The EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report
(TE-SAT) was established as a reporting mechanism
from the Terrorism Working Party (TWP) to
the European Parliament in the aftermath of the
9/11 attacks in 2001. Four editions of the TE-SAT
have been presented to date by the
Presidencies “based on a file and on the analyses
supplied by Europol” from Member States’ contributions.
1
In the beginning of 2006, Europol proposed to
widen the data collection for the TE-SAT in order
to enhance the quality of the report. The proposal
was endorsed by the Justice and Home
Affairs Council on 1 and 2 June 2006. This TE-SAT
follows the new methodology developed by
Europol in consultation with the Finnish and
German Presidencies, Eurojust and SITCEN.
According to ENFOPOL 65 (8196/2/06), the
TE-SAT is an unclassified annual document
which provides information on the phenomenon
of terrorism in the EU. The phenomenon of
terrorism is discussed in the TE-SAT 2007 from
the law enforcement point of view as a ‘crime’
although, admittedly, terrorism is fundamentally
a political phenomenon driven by political
motives and oriented toward political ends.
As an analytical report, the TE-SAT is a situation
report. It describes the outward manifestations
of terrorism i.e. terrorist attacks and activities. It
neither attempts to analyse the root causes of
terrorism nor to assess the threat posed by terrorism.
Furthermore, the TE-SAT does not assess
the impact or effectiveness of counter-terrorism
policies and law enforcement measures taken,
despite the fact that they form an important
part of the phenomenon.
The TE-SAT 2007 is an EU report and as such
aims at providing an overview of the situation in
the EU instead of describing the situation in single
Member States as was the case in earlier editions
of the TE-SAT. It seeks to establish basic
facts and figures regarding terrorist attacks and
activities in the EU.
The TE-SAT is,however, also a trend report. Since
a trend can be defined as “a general tendency in
the way a situation is changing or developing”,
the TE-SAT is a forward-looking report, which is
why the first issue of the Europol TE-SAT is called
TE-SAT 2007. However, due to changes in the
methodology, it is difficult to compare the findings
of the TE-SAT 2007 to earlier editions of the
TE-SAT and establish trends.
The TE-SAT is based mainly on information contributed
by the Member States concerning and
resulting from criminal investigations into terrorism
offences. The TE-SAT does not contain
information which is classified or which could
jeopardise ongoing investigations.
