Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 June 2011
INTRODUCTION
Terrorism has become one of the main buzz words of our times. This has not left the European Union (EU)'s policies unaffected. Indeed, it is fair to say that counter-terrorism is one of the fastest developing policy regimes within the EU. This might be particularly surprising given that it is somewhat controversial whether the EU should play a role in the fight against terrorism at all. Certainly the particularities of the European legal order create additional obstacles to adopting a coherent counter-terrorist policy regime.
In the last decade both the quality and the quantity of activities aimed to contain terrorism have increased tremendously within the EU. Today, the EU has developed its own counter-terrorist policies that include measures under the former Community pillar. In particular, the European Council's ‘Action Plan’ to fight terrorism on 21 September 2001 marks the opening of a new chapter in the EU's counter-terrorist activities. Part of this development is that the fight against terrorism has become one of the central objectives in the creation of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ). This both reflects and shapes the EU's choice of taking a criminal law approach to fighting terrorism. The Council described the objectives of the AFSJ as: (1) extending free movement of persons, protecting fundamental rights, and promoting EU citizenship while facilitating the integration of third country nationals (freedom); (2) fighting against all forms of organised crime (security); (3) guaranteeing European citizens equal access to justice and facilitating cooperation between Member States' judicial authorities (justice).
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.