Internal security ministers from several European Union (EU) states are stressing the need for counter-terrorism research to focus on liquid explosives in light of the potential threat to air transport.
At an informal meeting in London yesterday, European security commissioner Franco Frattini and ministers from Finland, France, Germany, Portugal, Slovenia and the UK emphasised the need for EU anti-terrorism strategies to be delivered at both European and member state level.
Their meeting comes less than a week after the UK thwarted a planned attack on US-bound aircraft using liquid explosives.
“Relevant aviation experts in the EU should meet as soon as possible to review the implications of this incident for European aviation security regulation,” says a joint ministerial statement.
“The events of [10 August] demonstrated that terrorist groups are constantly seeking new ways of attacking our societies.”
It says that research should “particularly be targeted” at work on liquid explosives.
The ministers state that pre-emptive anti-terrorism efforts, including intra-EU sharing of specialist knowledge through the European Programme for Critical Infrastructure Protection, should continue.
“Terrorists will already be trying to identify the next weak spot in our security to exploit,” they add. “We need to ensure that risk and impact assessment is central to the EU counter-terrorism strategy.”
Ministers say that the EU should not only continue enforcing security standards at airports within its member states but also work to raise such standards in other countries through technical assistance programmes. Further discussions will take place at an informal EU Council meeting in Tampere, Finland in September.
“However valuable our work so far, the EU must now step up its efforts,” the ministers add. “We have an ambitious EU strategy to combat terrorism; we need now to deliver it, both at EU level and nationally by member states. The threat to our citizens is serious and we reaffirm our political commitment to take action to make a reality of what we have agreed to do.”
Source: FlightGlobal.com
