In the wake of the March terrorist attacks on Brussels, which killed 32 civilians and injured more than 300 at the city’s airport and at a subway station, Belgium has found itself at the center of a global outpouring of prayers and support. As the country began three days of national mourning on March 22, monuments across the world were emblazoned with yellow, black, and red, flags were raised at half-mast, and the leaders of many countries vowed to aid Belgium in its search for those responsible.
However, this sentiment of solidarity has been marred by a deeply polemical debate over who bears the blame for the attacks. To be sure, the burden of responsibility lies first and foremost with the perpetrators of the bombings. But evidence has emerged indicating that these attacks required over a year of careful planning, which the attackers were able to conduct while hiding in plain sight: in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek and traveling freely across Europe as authorities failed to act on concrete warnings. With this revelation, public outrage at the lack of coordination, communication, and intelligence sharing has finally caught up to both the local Belgian and the international European policing community.
Due to the intense chemical smells in the terrorists’ apartment in Schaerbeek, an agent du quartier policeman had visited the building twice, but for some undisclosed reason he never actually entered the premises. During raids meant to capture suspects who presented a definite threat after the Paris attacks, many of whom were later involved in the Brussels attacks, Belgian police failed to apprehend key figures including Salah Abdeslam, who was involved in the November attack on Paris. After the attacks themselves had taken place, police scrambled to cordon off the affected areas and the zone around the apartment, while at least one attacker was caught on video as he calmly retreated from the airport. He was only apprehended weeks later in early April.
Perhaps even more disturbing than these local failures, however, is the utter lack of coherent interaction between different policing and intelligence organizations across Europe. Because of this cooperation failure, the terrorists operated largely undetected. One of the terrorists, Ibrahim El Bakraoui, had been flagged by Turkey as a terrorist fighter upon his return from Syria — a fact that Turkey had attempted to communicate to Belgium and the Netherlands. Indeed, El Bakraoui was deported to the Netherlands, but due to a mishandling of information, he was not kept under surveillance after reentering Belgium. Due in part to these communications breakdowns, the suspects were able to avoid capture during raids in Brussels a week before the attack.
This is not the first time the consequences of lackluster international coordination have loomed over European intelligence agencies. Indeed, the perpetrators of the November 2015 attacks on Paris had been based in the Brussels district of Molenbeek, which is widely feared to be an incubator for extremist terrorists; Salah Abdeslam was actually able to return to Molenbeek after escaping French police and remained hidden there for months under the nose of international authorities until his arrest in early March. Salah’s brother Ibrahim (who acted as a suicide bomber in Paris) had been detained by Belgian police after a failed attempt to travel to Syria, was suspected of having ties to ISIL, and had a criminal record within Belgium. However, the threat posed by the two brothers was not communicated to other countries, and Dutch police had no idea who they were dealing with when they fined the brothers for drug possession last year. Despite his status as a potential terrorist in Belgium, Salah was able to purchase detonators in France using his driver’s license. Moreover, the mastermind of the Paris attacks was able to slip unnoticed between Syria, Greece, France, and Belgium multiple times. Throughout this complicated web of actions, the Abdeslam brothers left a long paper trail, and yet authorities were unable to communicate effectively enough to follow it.
The problematic nature of intelligence communications in Europe can be traced to the traditionally decentralized nature of its policing and intelligence operations. All member nations of the EU operate their own intelligence services, and communication between each agency is minimal. One of the few formal mechanisms which exist to facilitate transnational intelligence exchange is Europol, an organization that remains largely unknown to the public. Tasked with compiling information on terrorists and ensuring that all nations are kept in the loop, Europol has failed to acquire adequate funding or anything more than tacit and empty words of support. Most EU nations display a continued reluctance to share intelligence, fearing a loss of sovereignty over their internal affairs, even though Europol has no mandate to make arrests or deploy any forces. Despite many nations reluctance to participate, Europol has proved itself at least somewhat useful: In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, Europol sent Parisian police a substantial amount of information that aided the search for suspects. Intelligence leaders have also expressed the concern that keeping sources and information in one place will make this data more vulnerable to cyberattacks. This information, however, can be made secure through proper encryption systems, and its protection cannot come at the expense of protecting Europeans themselves.
The fragmented nature of the current system is hardly compatible with the open nature of Europe’s internal borders. The Schengen Agreement, which instituted diminished border controls between certain EU member nations, allows individuals to move from country to country with relative freedom and ease. While this affords numerous economic benefits, particularly in terms of rapid transportation of commodities and the tourism industry, it comes with great caveats in the realm of security. Terrorists can travel between European countries — say, from Belgium to France and beyond—with as much ease as any tourist or businessman and without passport controls. The problem is that information does not travel as easily. As a result, the Schengen Agreement itself has become increasingly controversial, as certain politicians favor its abolition for the sake of increased security. However, as long it remains in place and movement remains relatively easy, existing European models of restricted information sharing are simply unsustainable, especially if more attacks are expected to be on the horizon.
Going forward, the EU must make a concerted effort to coordinate the dissemination of information about terrorism across its fluid internal borders. The simplest and most promising approach could be to strengthen Europol, which would require greater funding and information contributions from all EU member nations. The system would need to be kept up-to-date and in constant communication with authorities across the EU. In order to ensure that the information itself is secure, cyber defense mechanisms should be instituted. It seems that European nations are already beginning to reevaluate and reform their current security systems, implementing new programs that alter data collection patterns specifically to combat terrorism. However, these systems have proven controversial, and much more discussion is needed to establish systems which can balance fairness and safety. Crucially, all member nations must play a role in the creation of these new systems and their maintenance. The question of accountability should no longer be answered by shifting the blame to individual nations — if EU countries are unified in their desire to maintain open internal borders, they all have a responsibility to ensure that information is circulated to keep all EU citizens safe from a threat that has not discriminated between different individuals, cities, and nations.