Sharing intelligence

Текст 3

"Следует прежде всего сосредоточиться на обмене разведданными, который должен проходить быстро и в большом объеме"

Х. Солана

The summit of the EU members illustrated both the Union’s apparent political will to act together to fight terrorism and the limitations of such cooperation.

Smaller countries such as Belgium and Austria – which are perhaps more vulnerable to terrorism because of their limited budgets and personnel – have called for a wider pooling of intelligence in Europe. But ministers from larger countries, such as France and Britain, said Monday that they were reluctant to share their intelligence.

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France’s foreign minister, Domimque de Villepin, said that while it was important to share intelligence, it is also "a very delicate matter."

Straw, the British foreign secretary, said Britain wanted to continue sharing information "on a bilateral basis."

"Sharing intelligence requires a "very high level of confidence and trust," Straw said. Britain has agreed to increase sharing of information between governments but not within the European Commission, Straw said.

The commission, the European Union’s executive, is made up of 20,000 bureaucrats who implement EU laws and propose new ones.

Last week, German officials were furious that Spain initially refused to divulge the type of explosives used in the Madrid bombings.

In this atmosphere, perhaps it is not surprising that many suspects slipped through the cracks.

Текст 4

At a European Union meeting in Brussels on Friday, counterterrorism officials agreed to appoint a "terrorism czar" to facilitate a sharing of information about suspected terrorists.

"Чтобы наши шаги были четкими, я предложил ввести пост координатора ЕС по борьбе с терроризмом.

На этот пост назначен представитель Нидерландов Гийс Вернес.

Нам предстоит полностью и без задержек выполнить несколько важных законодательных решений. Таких как европейский ордер на арест. Это даст борьбе с терроризмом необходимый ей юридический инструмент".

Х. Солана.

Известия,

29 марта 2004

Текст 5

Among the most important of those antiterrorism laws was a pan-European arrest warrant, which allows countries inside the Union to automatically hand over suspects without going through extradition procedures.

Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy and the Netherlands have not yet written this rule into their national lawbook.

"The problem for the European Union is that we can only go at the pace of the slowest," Straw, the British foreign secretary, said.

Many, countries are dragging their feet in implementing the European rules into their national laws.

Straw had harsh words for countries that have not yet implemented measures that the EU agreed on in late 2001, in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. He told those countries to "get moving."

Текст 6

With decades of regional terrorism behind them, Spanish voters have always backed anti-terrorism measures taken by successive governments. But they have never identified the war in Iraq as fighting terrorism.

Its desperate security and intelligence services have fought a variety of largely individual terrorist threats for decades, from the Irish Republican Army in Britain to the Red Army Brigades in Italy and Basque terrorists in Spain. But they were not prepared for global terrorism as America is two and a half yeas after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The sadness and desperation of the first week after the attacks have given way to a different feeling. "It's in the Spanish character to look ahead. We never resign. It’s just not in our nature."