EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report

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.