Responding to the Paris attacks an emergency meeting of E.U. interior and justice ministers has agreed a series of new anti-terrorism measures that include tougher border security, gun control and surveillance.
The suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks Abdelhamid Abaaoud travelled undetected to Syria twice since 2013 returning to Europe with ease this year. On Friday European interior and justice ministers unanimously backed France’s call for a fundamental revision of the Schengen open border zone to allow “systematic” controls on external borders.
Even E.U citizens are expected to soon have their passports checked against criminal and security databases when entering or leaving the bloc. The crisis meeting began with a minute of silence to honor all those killed and injured during the attack in Paris carried out by Islamic State jihadists with ties to Syria and a planning cell based in Belgium. New E.U. rules allowing the collection and sharing of airline passenger data are also expected to be in place by the end of next month a plan long stalled by the European Parliament over privacy concerns. But a proposal by the European Commission to establish a bloc-wide intelligence agency met with resistance.
European officials also discussed ways to cut off terrorist funding, which could ultimately involve curbs on virtual currencies including Bitcoin.
