Lecturer “Aleksander Xhuvani” State University

Abstract

Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, the Europan Union has acted on several fronts to
reinforce its existing and nascent capabilities to combat terrorism. The European Concil adopted a comprehensive Plan of Action and
reached politicaagreement on a number of important counterterrorism initiatives. This paper provides a critical analysis of all these
measures and reveals that the EU’s counterterrorism policy is more of a paper tiger than it is an effective counterterrorism device. The
first part provides a brief historical overview, which analyses the event-driven and contingent development of the EU’s counterterrorism
policy. The second part presents a critical assessment of policy outcomes according to the objectives set out in the EU’s
Counterterrorism Strategy. Measures ‘to pursue’, and ‘to protect’ against terrorists seem to have grown substantially. In practice,
however, they are undercut by a lack of focus and use at the operational level. Similarly, EU’s capacities ‘to respond’ to terrorism have
been boosted, but there are doubts as to their relevance in real crisis situations. Yet most importantly, the EU remains unable to do more
‘to prevent’ terrorism. This seriously limits the overall effectiveness and output legitimacy of the EU’s efforts. The concluding third part
assesses these findings and argues that EU counterterrorism policy is ineffective and there is an immediate need for more cooperative
policies and implementations.