Germany's Approach to Preventing the Spread of Terrorism in the European Union

Recent Background of the Issue

Terrorism has become an inherently dynamic concern for not only the EU but for the entire international community, as terrorists have proven time and time again to be fully capable of habituating to the challenges posed by global initiatives, such as the Global Coalition Against Daesh, and similar counter-terrorism measures propagated by other entities. The recent proliferation of terrorism in the global sphere, primarily by Daesh, has resulted in an influx of refugees entering the EU due to its proximity to the terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda; in 2017 alone, roughly around 5.5 million refugees were reported to have left Syria as a byproduct of the ongoing conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic. Only a fraction of virtually entire nations fleeing to the EU for asylum successfully enter Europe (noting its very limited policies restricting the ease of arrival and outsourcing of refugees to other nations) but will typically be met with a preeminent stigma upon entry due to the generalizations made between terrorists, who are generally practicing Muslims, to the average refugee. As a result, a large number of potential recruits tend to come from nations of low-income inequality and overall high GDPs, as foreigners often feel isolated in homogenous nations who look down upon or stigmatize their Islamic beliefs.

To an extent, many of those fighting on the frontlines are loyal to the hierarchical nature of terrorist organizations as a byproduct of mere fanaticism cultivated primarily through online propaganda, but loyalty alone is not enough to upkeep the presence of these groups internationally as noted by how many members were known to have cut ties with ISIS in the past due to inconsistencies in their paychecks. Furthermore, the Schengen Agreement of 1985 essentially removing all internal borders within EU member states has also augmented the recent proliferation of terrorism within the EU, as the transportation of drugs, weapons, and other illicit materials have been much easier as it was before even with measures in place, such as the Schengen Information System (SIS), to manage the movement of goods and people. Seeing as how the threat of terrorism compromises the safety of the EU, as well as its citizens, we, as a body, must work to eliminate its presence in the Union at all costs.

Previous Un Action

Seeing as to how the threat of terrorism has become a prevalent issue internationally, the Un is involved in several initiatives primarily with the intent of disarmament. For example, the Un Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2253 in 2015 to cut off all sources of revenue by enhancing measures that promote the gathering of economic intelligence, as well as upkeeping ties with the private sector to pinpoint specific financial transactions between ISIS and its allies. This particular resolution, however, has received a quite a bit of backlash in the past with critics comparing it to Resolution 2199 passed early 2015, as well as numerous sanctions adopted in mid-2013 under the “Al-Qaida Sanctions List,” as both fail to explicitly mention “radical Islam” in their documentation. Under the EU, in particular, the body has been able to minimize the severity of terror attacks within Europe by framing responses around its 2005 EU Counter-Terrorism Strategy, which promotes measures to combat terrorism, not only in the Union but globally with an emphasis on human rights. To strengthen this mechanism in a more modern setting, Framework Decision 2002/475/JHA was implemented as a means of facilitating internal cooperation between EU member states in the absence of a universal solution. Although the recent implementation of these measures serves as a testament to the Un’s commitment towards the eradication of terrorism at its roots, we still have a long way to go before we can win the war against terrorism.

Country Policy and Solutions

Counter-terrorism measures have been among the principal security concerns in Germany since the 1972 Olympics in Munich in which eight Palestinean terrorists killed two Israeli competitors and took nine hostages and has continued with the reunification of the country in 1990. To maximize the output of these measures, each German state has a ministry of the interior while still working with the Coordinator for Intelligence to unify state efforts under a national policy. The implementation of these counter-terrorism measures, however, is generally the work of the Federal Ministry of the Interior in collaboration with the Federal Criminal Police, one of its many offices, and the German Intelligence to investigate acts of terrorism. Keeping the effects of terrorism on the scope of the EU in mind, Germany wants to keep terrorism at bay within the EU through the implementation of the Terror Threat Finance Cell, eGLYPH, Germany’s 2020 Humanitarian Aid Strategy, the CDRS.

Firstly, Germany proposes the establishment of a multinational finance cell as a means of hindering the economic capabilities of terrorist groups within the EU. This multinational finance cell, named the Terror Threat Finance Cell, will be modeled after the existing Afghan Threat Finance Cell, which has been successful in terminating illicit activity within Kabul in 2010, as well as enhanced American transparency measures in their war against Afghanistan. To maximize the efficiency of collection, as well as analysis, of economic intelligence, the Terror Threat Finance Cell will be based within Turkey due to its proximity to the heart of terrorist organizations and is thus where the majority of future operations will be carried out.

Rather than focusing on eliminating numerous sources of funding at once, which will be an overall inefficient allocation of time and resources, the cell will work towards mitigating the economic capabilities of terrorist organizations one source at a time, beginning with oil, which constitutes the vast majority of their current finances. First and foremost, the cell will work to block militants from selling their oil on the black market with the border between Turkey and Jordan, an area where the illicit oil trade is heavily concentrated, acting as the focal point of our preliminary efforts. To accomplish this task, we will collaborate with local allies, as well as utilize existing resources such as the Global Terrorism Database, to pinpoint specific criminal networks associated with terrorist groups such as ISIS that tend to frequent this border, which will eventually allow us to mitigate buyer transactions from as far as Iran to the KRG with what will be an extensive library of economic intelligence.

Often, the financial stability of terrorist organizations is not only rooted in the illicit oil trade within Middle Eastern regions but also from selling to overseas traders, other Syrian insurgent groups, as well as the Assad regime. For this reason, the cell will also work to enhance relations with China, as their vast network of trade routes across South and Central Asia may potentially be a geopolitical game-changer in mitigating the illicit oil trade beyond Middle Eastern borders. In a world where the threat of terrorism continues to grow with every passing hour, a more targeted approach is necessary to deprive terrorist groups, such as ISIS and al-Qaeda, of all sources of revenue and to avoid wasting billions of dollars on a strategy that will ultimately do more harm than good, a goal that will not be achieved by simply “following the money” alone.