Networked Security Governance: Reflections on the E.U.’s Counterterrorism Approach

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Abstract:

One of the objectives of the European Union has been to secure its territory and provide its citizens with
personal safety. In the global war on terror the challenge of global threats must be met as effectively as
possible. The E.U. had been developing its counterterrorist policy within an intergovernmental formula. In
the aftermath of Sepember 11 it had to look for new supranational arrangements. The politics of insecurity
strengthened by the effects of terrorist attacks on the European soil (Madrid 2004 and London 2005)
inspired the E.U.’s institutions as well as the member states to establish a networked form of security
governance based on information sharing, border control and virtual fencing as well as digital
identification and management of identity through biometrics.