“This March 11 is our September 11,” we could read in the Spanish press the day after the Madrid attacks.
On March 11, 2004, between 7:32 a.m. and 7:39 a.m., ten bombs exploded in four "cercanias" (suburban trains) at the Atocha, El Pozo, Santa Eugenia stations, as well as at Calle de Téllez.
The attack was first attributed to the Basque independence terrorist organization ETA against a backdrop of political maneuvering a few days before the legislative elections.
However, on the same evening of the attacks, the Spanish Minister of the Interior, Angel Acebes, announced during a press conference that an audio cassette containing verses from the Koran in Arabic had been found in a van alongside seven detonators, calling for caution and to investigate other avenues.
Responsibility for the attacks was claimed a few days later by Al-Qaeda, which claimed to have wanted to "punish Spain for having deployed troops in Iraq and Afghanistan".
With this claim from Al-Qaeda, the ETA trail is definitively ruled out.
Prime Minister José Maria Aznar, accused of having lied for electoral purposes, is sanctioned by the ballot box and the socialist José Luis Zapatero succeeds him.
Among the first commitments of the new head of government: the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq.
With 191 dead and more than 1,800 injured, the Madrid attacks – commonly called "11-M" by the Spanish – constitute to date the terrorist attack with the heaviest death toll perpetrated on European soil.
Four days after the attacks, on France 2, Miguel Angel Moratinos, advisor to José Luis Zapatero for international affairs and former EU envoy to the Middle East, called on European leaders to "make an extra effort" against terrorism: “We need a new legal, political and security framework to cope together, all EU countries, in the best way.”
In Brussels, the same day of the attacks, March 11 was declared "European Day of Commemoration of the Victims of Terrorism".
A date which also marks the relaunch of a European strategy to combat terrorism, which will be strengthened by increasingly frequent attacks on the Old Continent.
See also Madrid attacks: twenty years later, a wound still raw
Residents of Bordeaux gather in front of the city's town hall on March 13, 2004, during a silent gathering organized as a sign of solidarity with the Spanish people after the terrorist attacks in Madrid on March 11.
© Patrick Bernard, AFP
2004, the beginning of a “dark period which will change politics, but with delay”
“Madrid is not the trigger, but the attacks of 2004 marked the beginning of a relentlessness [of jihadist terrorism] against Europe, which meant that the fight against terrorism evolved,” explains Elizabeth Sheppard-Sellam, director from the international and political relations program at the University of Tours, and a specialist in security and defense policies in Europe.
This event “reminds Europeans that a massive attack on their soil, in something as banal as public transport during rush hour, can happen,” continues the counterterrorism expert.
“This introduces a period where we are experiencing a series of attacks on European soil with many different patterns. Madrid marks the beginning of a dark period which will change policy, but with delay,” he explains. -She.
Two and a half years earlier, it was in the United States that Al-Qaeda had struck, on September 11, 2001. Terrorists had hijacked four airliners to crash them against buildings emblematic of American power – the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington – causing nearly 3,000 deaths.
"It was the first time that Article 5 of the NATO treaty was triggered, which said that an attack against the United States is an attack against everyone. However, everyone thought that this was just America's problem," says Elizabeth Sheppard-Sellam.
"It took the attacks in Madrid and London for Europe to say, 'Oh no, it's our problem too.'" London was in fact hit by a terrorist attack a year after the attacks in Madrid.
A series of explosions on public transport left 56 dead and 784 injured.
Also read September 11: “Twenty years later, the attack continues to fuel the conspiracy narrative”
A few days after the Madrid attacks, the Irish President of the European Council, Bertie Ahern, declared: "These barbaric and cowardly attacks have served as a terrible reminder of the threat that terrorism poses to our society."
At the same time, he announced a revised counter-terrorism strategy: "The Union and its Member States are committed to doing everything in their power to combat terrorism in all its forms."
But at the European level, these decisions produce effects over a long time: "In the EU, it is not like at the national level where we can declare a state of emergency and give the State the capacity to act immediately,” explains Elizabeth Sheppard-Sellam.
In 2004, the European Union was made up of 25 member states (compared to 27 today), making decision-making more laborious.
“Everyone must agree, knowing that political issues come into play. Nothing is easy at European level.”
Tools deployed gradually, in response
Toulouse and Montauban, Paris, Nice, Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, Berlin, Barcelona and Cambrils, Marseille, Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, Brussels, Arras… Attacks on European soil have multiplied over the past 20 years, and the The EU continues to consider the main axes of its 2005 counter-terrorism strategy – prevention, protection, prosecution – as an absolute priority.
In 2007, the post of European coordinator for the fight against terrorism was created, which supervises the application of the EU counter-terrorism strategy and improves communication between the Union and third countries. .
The European arrest warrant, which entered into force in 2004, is placed under his surveillance.
In the 2010s, a second wave of attacks led to a new set of reforms focused on data sharing.
The main databases were revised and their management was entrusted in 2012 to the European agency eu-LISA, ensuring their interoperability.
This exchange of data between States represents "the crux of the matter" for Elizabeth Sheppard-Sellam, who nevertheless deplores the fact that certain bases were the subject of late decisions.
The regulation aimed at requiring Member States to carry out systematic checks on all people entering the EU was, for example, only adopted by the European Council in March 2017. "It makes you wonder why they didn't understood beforehand what the problem was.”
At the end of 2020, Europe was once again hit by terrorism, notably in France with the assassination of Samuel Paty, a professor beheaded for showing his students caricatures of Mohammed, and in Vienna, Austria, where a "sympathizer" of the Islamic State organization kills four people.
The European Commission's new program for the fight against terrorism, presented in December, focuses on anticipation, prevention, protection and reaction to the terrorist threat.
An EU police cooperation code is proposed by the European Commission in December 2021.
“We sometimes have the impression of a duplication or even tripling of policies and institutions [which are responsible for them], which raises the question of their effectiveness,” analyzes Elizabeth Sheppard-Sellam.
An effectiveness also questioned by the lack of homogeneity in the way in which EU member states tackle the fight against terrorism.
Also read: Terrorist threat: Europe facing the “strategy of a thousand cuts”
Overcoming the lack of unity through data sharing
“Even with five-year strategies, it’s quite chaotic,” notes Elizabeth Sheppard-Sellam, who mentions responses sometimes given late due to national policy issues specific to each Member State, and a priority given to the fight anti-terrorism measures vary from one country to another.
“We must make no mistake, there is no unity, even on these issues.”
In terms of defense and security, as European measures are not binding, their implementation in practice is difficult to achieve in a uniform manner.
A pattern that Elizabeth Sheppard-Sellam compares to the NATO rule according to which its member states must devote 2% of their GDP to military spending, which is not always followed.
“The fight against terrorism is a necessity, but as it concerns sovereign policies (intelligence, army, police), it is very difficult to institutionalize European collaboration.”
Despite the diversity of legislation at national level, European Directive 2017/541 establishes a common legal framework for all Member States and, in particular, a harmonized definition of terrorist crimes.
At national level, legislation relating to terrorism varies within the limits set by this directive, although Member States retain some flexibility when legislating.
If this fight is more of a priority for France, Spain or the United Kingdom, it is because these countries have been attacked more and the terrorist threat is more intense there.
“In Latvia or Estonia, for example, we are more worried about the threat from our Russian neighbor than about jihadist terrorism,” explains Elizabeth Sheppard-Sellam.
States generally act in a dispersed order.
Particularly on the foreign policy of combating Islamist terrorism.
If France engaged in a struggle outside its borders (notably in Africa), this policy was not, for example, that of Spain.
It is therefore up to European states to get in tune, mainly with regard to the sharing of intelligence in a space where borders are open, insists Elizabeth Sheppard-Sellam.
For her, the numerous attacks foiled in the EU are mainly thanks to these exchanges.
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