The context in which this paper is written relates to an international threat which in the recent years grew in amplitude and received more and more attention from the political elites, namely the concept of terrorism. This paper puts the concept in the territory of the European Union likewise establishing the boundaries of the research. In completion of the context, the internal security dimension of the European Union will be focused on along with terrorism, which will be referred throughout the paper, while other threats such as cross-border crime will be briefly mentioned.
The phenomenon of terrorist attacks grew in density within the European Union in the last two years. Thus, the objective of this paper is to identify some of the gaps in the internal security of the Union which cumbersome the implementation of countering measures. In doing so, the research will start from the premise that more focus should be given to information sharing and cooperation between national security services of the member states and the Union’s security related agencies (e.g. Europol, INTCEN) in order to manage the internal security and tackle terrorism. Then, to contrast, the paper will also bring into discussion an alternative for managing the information flow and internal security by presenting and analyzing some of the proposals for a supranational security body, a European secret service. All the above have to be viewed in the bigger picture of a healthy European security environment with the main task of tackling terrorism.
In conclusion the findings of this research embody firstly an assumption or a hypothesis revealing that the level of information sharing and cooperation is influenced by trust relationships between the actors and by the element of national sovereignty. Secondly, the criteria pattern emerged can be used as an assessment tool to determine how realistic the idea of a European secret service is. By pointing out to the attributes and capabilities of such an organization, whoever might initiate such a project can realise which capabilities are achievable at the given time and which not, likewise influencing if the establishing is possible or not.