Security Challenges in the Baltic States, Ukraine and Belarus: Nord Stream-2 Pipeline and Russia

By Musa Khan Jalalzai

There are different perceptions in the west about Russian interference in the EU; some states see Russia as a friendly partner, and some view it as a hostile power, but, majority of states want to maintain friendly relations with Russia. These factors matter, and the relations with and perceptions of Russia certainly differ between various countries.
It is noted that the US and NATO presence in Eastern Europe was a bigger challenge to the national security of Russian Federation, and that the US wanted to pressure Germany to undermine the Nord Stream-2 pipeline project.
The construction of the controversial natural gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 has been delayed for months and completion is increasingly at risk after the US imposed sanctions on involved companies and threatened further steps. The pipeline under the Baltic Sea has been the subject of heated debate for years.
The book focuses on the Security Challenges faced by the Baltic States, Ukraine and Belarus.

• Language: English
• Publisher: VIJ Books (India) Pty Ltd
• Release date: Mar 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9789390439478

Book preview

Introduction

The state and its citizens in Europe and the UK have become increasingly consternated and vulnerable on account of militarisation of mind and thought of political and bureaucratic stakeholders. In Europe, terrorist and jihadist networks have shaken out while their links with South Asian and Middle Eastern groups have become indestructible. In my recent visit to some EU member states (August 2020), I came across a number of research papers and books-spotlighting security crises in the near future. Efforts to strengthen the capacity and capability of state institutions and actors responsible for the provision, management, and oversight of security sector reform (SSR), within all EU member states, are becoming more important. In France, notwithstanding reforms in the intelligence and security sector, the state intelligence agencies are operating in four cultural and political directions. These four cultures (Arab, African, South Asia, and French) of intelligence information collection have put policy makers in trouble.

In my three precursory books on European security and intelligence infrastructure, I have stressed the need for policing and intelligence reforms and reorganisation of the state in Europe. At present, we have no intelligent state within the EU project-all states are struggling to reinvent their institution by introducing intelligence and policing reforms to make the state competent and stronger. Though some states introduced security and intelligence reforms in Europe, they faced the wrath of old Soviet-style bureaucratic and political stakeholderism. Romania failed to expedite the process of intelligence reforms and undermine the old security infrastructure, while in Belarus, Ukraine, Hungary, France and Germany, parliamentarians and experts also grappled with confrontations and unnecessary opposition of bureaucratic and political stakeholders. For years, EU member states have spent considerable effort to establish a stable security environment by introducing security sector reforms, but their speed of implementation has been so weak since the Paris, Nice and Brussels attacks. The first step to effectively engage with security sectors is to understand what characteristics render them more likely to make a positive contribution to stability. The three small countries-Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are under constant threat from all sides, while NATO and the US have failed to provide them with reasonable protection. They are being exploited and used against Russia by the NATO member states.

Congressional Research services (02 January 2020) in its recent paper highlighted political and security development in these three states: Latvia Latvia’s October 2018 general election produced a fragmented result, with seven parties winning seats in the country’s 100-seat unicameral parliament (Saeima). After three months of negotiations and deadlock, a five-party coalition government took office in January 2019. Researchers caution against implicit assumptions that the Baltic States’ Russian-speaking communities monolithically support Russia or pro-Russian narratives; surveys indicate a diversity of attitudes within these communities with regard to viewpoints toward Russia and Russia-related questions. Nevertheless, the Baltic States’ Russian-speaking population remains a significant factor in both Russian policy toward the region and assessments of the potential security threat posed by Russia. The Baltic States each possess ethnic Russian minorities, especially Estonia and Latvia.

They were, at different times, part of the Russian empire and the Soviet Union. After independence, for the first time, in 2014, reports of the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian counterintelligence services stressed there had been intensified espionage by some States. The civilian intelligence service of Belarus (KGB) is also analysing Lithuania’s border areas but is much more concentrated on efforts against the Belarusian opposition in Lithuania. Lithuanian military intelligence estimates that Russian armed forces are capable of mobilising units from its Western Military District (MD) for use against the Baltic States in 24 hours. Security service of Estonia-KAPO has also warned that the security threat is amplifying. Matti Pesu, a senior research fellow of European Union research programme in the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (January 2020) has painted an interesting picture of Baltic security environment:

Fundamentally, stability is the product of the interplay between the three dynamics. In other words, NATO’s reassurance and deterrence measures accompanied by Finland’s and Sweden’s integration into the Western security and defence system act as a counterweight to Russia’s actions in the region, creating a balance of power holding Russia’s ambitions in check. Investigating the sources of regional balance is relevant for multiple reasons. The region remains a potential hotspot between Russia and the West and, thus, it merits close and continuous attention. Moreover, the word ‘stability’ frequently features in foreign policy parlance in Northern Europe, particularly in Finland and Sweden. Given this rhetorical proclivity, attention needs to be paid to the factors that constitute stability and the state of hard security in the Baltic Sea area.

International analyst of Russkaya Baltika (The Russian Baltics), centers of public and political studies, Alexander Nosovich highlights some aspects of Baltic security mechanism: Over the past three years, political processes in the Baltic States have developed within the overall western trend of the population protesting against the old elites, characterised by voting for the so-called populists. In all three republics, members of the old elites lost to political movements and politicians that voters do not associate with the ruling class......All three Baltic states have come to the realisation that their respective demographic crises have led them into a strategic impasse. As of today, neither Lithuania, nor Latvia, nor Estonia have figured out how to effectively combat the mass outgoing migration of employable young people and the critical increase in the share of retirees in the population structure. The current development model of these three countries suggests that there is no single effective solution.

Perceptions of Estonia revolve around interdependent security logic. Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service understands that Estonia is under threat from Russia, but the question is how and why? Russia never threatened its borders and never interfered in its internal affairs. The foreign intelligence in its report warned: International Security and Estonia that the world has not become a more secure place in the last five years – in fact, if anything, the opposite is true. The report inculcated that: "In the immediate region of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the balance of military power is tilted in favour of Russia. The fact is Russia is a superpower that challenges the United States. Olevs Nikers (Jamestown 30 March, 2020) also noted the crying of Baltic intelligence agencies about the Chinese threat to the region:

In mid-March, the State Security Service (VDD) of Latvia published its annual public report. While the new coronavirus COVID-19 disease has for some time brought other priorities to the forefront of public safety, national security issues remain relevant," said VDD Chief Normunds Mežviets (Vdd.gov.lv, March 17). Similar reports were issued earlier this year by the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service (EFIS) (Valisluureamet.ee, February 12) and the State Security Department as well as the Second Investigative Department under the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defense (Vsd.lt, February 24). Crucially, while all three countries’ intelligence services, once again highlighted threats from Russia; their annual reports additionally raised growing concerns about hostile Chinese activities. The EFIS report clearly declares, The only existential threat to Estonia’s sovereignty is a potential Russian military operation against the Baltic States. Compared to NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] forces, the balance of power on the Baltic States’ axis is clearly tilted in favour of Russia. Even discounting [the heavily militarized Russian Baltic exclave of] Kaliningrad, Russia has absolute supremacy in terms of offensive equipment—tanks, fighter aircraft and rocket artillery (News. err, February 12). The now-familiar threats of hybrid warfare, espionage, terrorism, extremism, cyber warfare, disinformation, fake news and populism will of course continue to dominate the Baltic States’ security environment as in past years". Russia wants to protect its interests in Baltic state, so that the country maintains a strong presence in the region. Geir Hagen Karlsen (Palgrave Communication-2019) has also highlighted Russian influence in some European states. Russia maintains a strong presence in the EU and helps several states in term of trade facilitation and gas supply:

Many countries promote their culture abroad through organizations like the British Council or the Goethe Institute. In most cases, this is seen as benevolent, soft power activities that rely on attraction. The Russian approach is to mix their cultural activities with their intelligence activities to create an important foreign policy tool (EISS, 2017c). Compatriots, the Russian minorities abroad, thus become a tool for the Russian government, viewed both as supporters and implementers of Russian foreign policy. Russia has comprehensive resources and a complex set-up of organizations at its disposal. There is a federal agency, Rossotrudnichestvo, the organization Russian World, and various funds promoting their compatriot policy. Abroad, at the receiving end, there is an array of foundations, think tanks and NGOs supported by Russia. These front organizations promote various Russian narratives to subvert and create division, rewrite history, and use and abuse culture to legitimize the Russian view, and then propagate it through local Russian-supported media projects or mainstream media. Sometimes they even support extremist groups. One key element is the promotion of the idea of the so-called Russian world, the places where Russians live and where Russia has special rights and the obligation to protect their compatriots. Support is also provided through Russian embassies, secret services, businesses, or other non-transparent channels. DP describes this as humanitarian influence measures (EISS, 2016: pp. 6–7; DP, 2018: pp. 5, 13–21)

There are different perceptions in the west about Russian interference in the EU; some states see Russia as a friendly partner, and some view it as a hostile power, but, majority of states want to maintain friendly relations with Russia, These factors matter, and the relations with and perceptions of Russia certainly differ between, for example, the Netherlands and the Baltics. Geir Hagen Karlsen in his research paper outlined Russian influence in Europe, and its relationship with different states. He has quoted several reports and experts on ethnic composition and in the EU:

Russian influence activities are, at least partially, conducted by covert means, which makes it difficult to observe and analyze them. It is the task of Western secret services to unveil covert activity and using data from intelligence reports gives access to information that is often not available elsewhere or that may supplement other sources. This study examines the perceptions of Western secret services regarding Russian influence activities, and is conducted through an analysis of about 40 annual reports from 15 security services of 11 Western countries: Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the U.S. Annual reports were selected as they give an overview of each service´s perspectives, and thus deemed suitable for this study. There is a wealth of other material available, including from parliamentary hearings, inquiries, media coverage, websites, public statements, legal documents, and so on. Using these as reference material, however, would require substantial search and translation resources in many languages, but they certainly provide a basis for future in-depth study. The Baltic States paint a particularly grim picture, possibly because of their unique history, geography and ethnic composition. The Estonian view is that the Russian regime will remain aggressive, conducting hostile influence operations and consistently cultivating tension and undermining trust in democratically elected governments (EISS, 2016: pp. 2–5; EIB, 2017: p. 7). Russian influence activities in the information domain are seen as the main threat, having a detrimental effect on Latvia´s national security, and subverting democratic processes (DP, 2017: p. 5). Russia´s imperial ambitions and aggressive foreign policy is causing a tense security situation, and Russia is discrediting Lithuania, influencing political, social and economic processes and dividing the Lithuanian society (SSD, 2017a: pp. 7–8).

On 09 August 2020, the Presidential election was held in Belarus which elected Alexander Lukashenko while opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya contradicted his victory and claimed to have won a decisive first-round victory with at least 60% of the vote, and called on Lukashenko to start negotiations. Many countries and international organisations, including the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Canada, refused to accept the result of the election. Andrew Higgins and Ivan Nechepurenko (New York Times 17, 2020) reported President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko’s request to President Putin for help. Mr. Lukashenko spoke by telephone with President Vladimir V. Putin and Mr. Putin offered help to ensure the security of Belarus in the event of external military threats, which suggested that any help from Russia might not include security assistance against domestic threats like protesters. Daily Mail (18 Aug 2020) reported Russian President’s warning to German and France that any political and military interference in Belarus can exacerbate the political tension between Europe and Russia. Analyst and expert, Mr. Glen E. Howard (September 2019) highlights the political crisis in Belarus in his recent paper, and noted that President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko does not consider any foreign state as enemy:

In early 2016, Belarus took perhaps one of its most significant steps since gaining independence by redesigning its military doctrine to adapt to new hybrid threats after a thorough examination of its external challenges. On January 22, 2016, President Lukashenka approved the landmark changes following a year-long review by the Ministry of Defense initiated in response to the events in Ukraine in 2014. In fact, this was the first-ever change in modern Belarus’s military doctrine—a clear indication that the previous revolutions in Libya, Egypt, and Syria did not have the same impact that Ukraine did on Belarus’s thinking. Most importantly, the document revealed a change in the mindset of Belarusian officials, showing their view of a possible Russian intervention in Belarus, as the threat of hybrid warfare and color revolutions, come to dominate the country’s security thinking. Belarusian Minister of Defense Andrei Raukou claimed that Belarus did not consider any foreign state an enemy, But, he added, we of course will not concede our territory and will use any force and means, including military to avoid that. On July 20, 2016, Belarus adopted a new military doctrine that referred to the threat posed by hybrid warfare, a clear, albeit unstated, reference to the threat posed by Russia and its use of non-linear warfare. The adoption of the new military doctrine reflected Belarus’s classic style of balancing its ties with Russia. Though a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which squarely places Belarus in a collective security alliance with Russia, Minsk has adopted a new military concept that is obviously oriented against the country it is ostensibly aligned with. Combatting the dual threats posed by either a colored revolution or a hybrid threat conveniently masks the Russian threat represented by the latter.

Prominent Indian diplomat and analyst M.K. Bhandra Kumar (09, 09, 2020-Indian Punch) noted in his article that the US and NATO presence in Eastern Europe was a bigger challenge to the national security of Russian Federation, and noted that the US wanted to pressure Germany to undermine the Nord Stream-2 pipeline project: Washington will be pleased if a regime change takes place in Belarus. Most certainly, a high degree of coordination exists between the US and the three regional states who are actively interfering in Belarus—Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine. Moscow’s approach under these circumstances will be to promote Belarus’ deeper integration with Russia within the framework of the Union State pact of 1998. Thus, Moscow and Minsk have reportedly agreed on the resumption of Russian energy supplies to Belarus, which has been a major sticking point in the relations. The defence ministers are preparing a road map, which may include Russian military facilities in Belarus. Meanwhile; the increased US military presence in Eastern Europe emboldens Poland and Lithuania to keep the pot boiling in Belarus. Also, trust the Trump administration to keep up the pressure on Germany to abandon the Nord Stream 2 project. Washington estimates that German-Russian relations won’t be the same once Merkel retires next year.

Aljazeera (20 Jun 2020) in its news report raised questions about the effectiveness of EU sanction against Russia as some EU member states want a friendly relationship with Russia and do not want to further the agenda of NATO and US: European leaders say Russia has failed to implement the ceasefire deal it signed with Ukraine in 2015. German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the European Union has no choice but to extend sanctions against Russia’s energy, financial and arms sectors until next January. It follows worsening relations between Germany and Russia. Moscow is accused of ordering a murder in Berlin and conducting cyberattacks on the German government. So, are the sanctions working? Now as works Nord Stream-2 Pipeline is in progress in various states, the US government has often tried to stop its working process across Europe but failed.

Julian Wettengel (07 Sep 2020) in his paper noted controversies with regard to Nord Stream-2, US illegal sanction against it, and the debates that supported and criticised the project across Europe. Some German politicians raised questions with regard to the Pipeline, and warned that as Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned by an unknown group in August 2020, the project needs to be procrastinated. German Foreign Minister in a statement said, I hope the Russians will not force us to change our position on Nord Stream 2, but there are 100 EU companies involved in the Project, if procrastinated it may generate a new debate in European states with regards to their economic interests. This pipeline is underwater that will be transporting natural gas from Russia directly to Germany:

The construction of the controversial natural gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 has been delayed for months and completion is increasingly at risk after the US imposed sanctions on involved companies and threatened further steps. The pipeline under the Baltic Sea has been the subject of heated debate for years. The project would allow additional Russian gas to flow directly to Germany. Proponents argue the pipeline is a commercial investment that is key to Europe’s supply security, while opponents criticise Nord Stream 2 on environmental, geopolitical, and security grounds. [Updates recent developments concerning the Navalny case]… Calls to stop or at least put on hold the pipeline project gained traction among German politicians following the poisoning of Russian opposition figurehead Alexei Navalny at the end of August 2020......Even before the Navalny case, the United States stepped up pressure on companies involved in the final stretches of Nord Stream 2....In mid-2020, the US threatened a new round of sanctions. These were meant as a clear warning to companies that aiding the project would not be tolerated by Washington.

Musa Khan Jalalzai

London Oct 2020

Chapter 1

A Decade of EU Counter-Terrorism and Intelligence: A Critical Assessment

Javier Argomaniz, Oldrich Bures, Christian Kaunert

The Treaty on the European Union (EU) stipulates that one of the key objectives of the Union is to provide citizens with a high level of safety within an Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ). Given that the fight against terrorism is a prominent aspect of this general objective, it is remarkable that, in spite of its political relevance and decade-long history, it has only relatively recently received due attention in the academic community.¹ At the time of writing, only a handful of post-9/11 edited volumes and special issues have focused on specific aspects of the EU counterterrorism efforts² and initial monographs on the subject have only been relatively recently published by the three editors behind this special issue: Argomaniz³ has produced a theoretically informed assessment of the coherence of the EU response, Bures⁴ has examined the extent to which the EU can offer an added value in the fight against terrorism in Europe and Kaunert⁵ has studied how counterterrorism has been a driver in the process of construction of the EU’s AFSJ.

Given these substantive efforts, this special issue suggests that an analysis of the successes and failures of the EU’s involvement in this field is imperative and we believe this is a particularly pertinent moment to take stock of progress. The goal of this special issue is, therefore, to look back at the past decade and answer the question of whether, when it comes to the measures taken to combat terrorism following the 9/11 attacks, the EU has lived up to the promise made in its founding treaties. The editors believe that adopting this long term perspective contributes to our understanding of the subject by permitting the individual contributors to this special issue to reveal general trends and to draw upon their accumulated expertise in order to produce a thorough assessment of the outcomes of the EU efforts to combat terrorism since 9/11.

In order to ensure unity of purpose, an editorial meeting was held in November 2011 in the context of an International Workshop at the University of St Andrews that was generously funded by the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV). The result of those fruitful exchanges is this special issue: a volume that presents the views of leading experts casting a critical eye over the EU performance, recognizing achievements but also being suitably critical when realities did not match the European rhetoric. Although ‘counterterrorism’ is not yet a clearly defined area in its broadest and fullest sense, it already spans across a number of other policy areas across all of the EU’s former three pillars. Thus, right from the start, the consensus was to adopt a broadly sectoral approach for this interim evaluation, independently examining policy outputs from some of the main components of the European Union’s multifaceted fight against terrorism.

These include the exchange of information between police and intelligence agencies, the protection of critical infrastructure, the development of external action, the production of counter-terrorism legislation, the control of European borders and the fight against terrorist recruitment and financing. As a general rule, all articles in this special issue have attempted to determine the extent to which the EU has put in practice its own policy plans since 9/11, all articles discuss the political and institutional factors behind successes and failures and, when needed, present lessons learned and forward-looking recommendations. To complement these efforts, several contributions have also followed a thematic approach to matters such as the evolving importance of institutional actors for EU counter-terrorism, the impact of these policies on national systems and the centrality accorded to intelligence efforts in the European response. Thus, although the conceptual approaches have varied between the contributing experts, the general goal has remained to provide an indication of how EU counterterrorism relates back to the changing nature of the phenomenon of terrorism. What this special issue has not attempted to achieve, however, is an evaluation of the effectiveness of these policies.

Although the editors raised this issue at the editorial meeting, it soon became obvious that quantifying effectiveness of counter-terrorism strategies is beyond the reach of this project. There have been few attempts at providing evaluations of counterterrorism interventions at the national level and even fewer methodologically ambitious ones.⁶ This can be explained, amongst other factors, by the absence of sufficient evidence to measure impact due to the unavailability of sensitive data, as well as by the lack of consensus on how ‘effectiveness’ should be gauged.⁷

This is due to the methodological difficulties of finding the right proxy indicators that would complement the few available, yet inherently limited quantifiable criteria (such as the number of arrests, requests for assistance, or amounts of frozen terrorist money) that do not shed much light on the actual effects of counterterrorism measures on specific cultures, groups and individuals–as virtually all contributions in this special issue confirm, even the most ‘efficient’ counterterrorism measures increasing the overall security may be problematic due to their impact on other important values such as liberty and justice. An additional and EU-specific obstacle is the multilevel system of governance involving national, sub-national and supranational actors, which complicates attempts of tracing back the origin of specific outcomes to certain policies and/or actors.

The high density of factors affecting the incidence of terrorist violence and the difficulty in isolating the short and long term impact of individual variables has clear implications for counter-terrorism, both at the domestic and international level. It undermines the capacity that national and supranational actors have in other public policy arenas to deliver evidence based policies that are sustained by meaningful cost-effectiveness analyses and whose overall impact and implications can be measured in a thorough and credible manner. In other words, not having clear indicators of the extent to which a counter-terror initiative works – or does not – towards a specific goal affects whether counter-terror actors allocate their resources in a sensible manner.

The repercussions deriving from these limitations are evident in ‘real-life’ counter-terrorism: from existing scepticism on the value of European governments’ counter-radicalization efforts⁸ to the debates on whether the effect of the targeted killing of jihadists by US drone campaigns are more than counterbalanced by their impact on anti-American feelings in the region and the increase in domestic opposition due to their corrosive effect on human rights and international and US law.⁹ Finally, it is also important to note that with the exception of the EU’s Counterterrorism Coordinator, none of the EU agencies and institutions discussed in this volume has a counterterrorism-only mandate. Similarly, many of the legal instruments utilized in the fight against terrorism are general anti-crime measures. Thus, following Mark Rhinard, Arjen Boin and Magnus Ekengren, we believe that it is important to keep in mind that there are actually three levels of abstraction of EU’s counterterrorism capacities:

1. Capacities explicitly engineered toward the fight against terrorism;

2. Capacities directed toward managing complex threats and natural disasters in general;

3. Capacities found in EU institutions that may help national agencies, of any type, respond to adverse events.¹⁰ This further complicates all scholarly attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of EU policies in the area of counterterrorism: ‘It is hard to predict how the EU can and will employ the tools explicitly designed for counterterrorism purposes, it is impossible to foresee if and how the Union will employ its generic tools that were originally designed for other purposes’.¹¹ Taking all of the aforementioned caveats and reservations into account, we decided that rather than to focus just on effectiveness, which the contributors to this special issue address in those areas where the aforementioned problems could be reasonably tackled (e.g. in the fight against terrorist financing, where at least some relevant data is publicly available), our primary criterion of progress is presence: the materialization and development of EU policies and their translation into national systems and the establishment of institutional actors with the necessary powers and resources to fulfil the objectives laid out in the official EU strategy documents.

In other words, the objective is to look at the existence of policies at the EU level and then, when possible, to reach a conclusion based on available evidence on whether these initiatives have had – or had the future potential to – make a difference on the ground. The distinction between presence and effectiveness is clear when seen in the context of the process of bureaucratic development that has occurred in this area. Clearly, there has been a dramatic growth in the past decade on the number of EU bodies engaged in counter-terrorism at different levels. Individual contributions have richly illustrated this point. For instance, Occhipinti has outlined Europol’s growing competencies and resources in the post-9/11 environment and their working relationship with Eurojust and Frontex. Bures has examined the role of committees such as the EU Clearing House in channelling the EU’s fight against terrorism financing. Argomaniz has listed a long list of bureaucratic actors (i.e. ENISA, CIWIN, AVSEC, MARSEC and others) that are working on protecting critical infrastructures from man-made attacks.

Bakker has examined the work of the European Network of Experts on Radicalisation (ENER) when critically analysing the EU’s approach. Kaunert, Leonard and McKenzie have concentrated on the European Parliament’s role whereas Monar has referred to the work of the EU Counter-terror Coordinator and closely examined the myriad of Council committees working on the external dimension of the threat. In parallel, den Boer has looked at Sitcen/Intcen when producing a fine-grained analysis of the transparency and accountability challenges associated with the sharing of intelligence at the European level. This is of course far from a complete list. So clearly the EU has succeeded – mainly, but by no means only – through this process of bureaucratic development to achieve recognition and visibility. Yet we take great pains to separate in our argument prominence from impact and sustain the point that the mushrooming of relevant actors at the European level should not be assumed uncritically as having in principle a direct and substantial contribution to a stronger counter-terror response in practice.

This is not only because new counterterrorism initiatives keep mushrooming while the existing arrangements continue to flourish albeit many of the formal EU agencies suffer from an output deficit. More importantly, several findings of the articles in this special issue challenge the view that a more crowded map of EU counterterrorism arrangements is axiomatically the way forward when it comes to addressing the contemporary terrorist threats in Europe. As long as it is uncertain whether extra layers of communication systems, databases and practitioners’ meetings at the European level are really the recipe to superior results, it seems reasonable to argue that more does not necessarily always mean better when it comes to fighting terrorism in Europe. Overall, we believe that by following this approach the special issue offers a more nuanced view of the EU counterterrorism policy than those currently presented by its enthusiastic supporters and its unyielding critics.

The Post-9/11 Significance of the EU as a Counter-Terrorism Actor

The consensus view in this volume is that the European Union has accomplished