European Union justice and interior ministers have agreed to improve intelligence-sharing and appoint a security co-ordinator in response to last week's bomb attacks in Madrid. Denis Staunton reports from Brussels
An emergency meeting in Brussels approved a range of measures in response to the attacks, which the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, described as an assault on the entire European continent.
Mr McDowell, who chaired yesterday's meeting, said the Madrid bombs represented a calculated, blatant and heinous attack on the democratic way of life.
"Our purpose is to demonstrate that the terrorist will not succeed in overturning the hard-won liberties that illumine all the nations of the Union, and which make us masters of our own destinies and the envy of the world," he said.
In the US, President Bush, marking the first anniversary today of the start of the war in Iraq, made thinly veiled criticism of the incoming Spanish government's decision, in the wake of the Madrid atrocity, to pull its troops out of Iraq.
"Any sign of weakness or retreat simply validates terrorist violence and invites more violence for all nations. The only certain way to protect our people is by united and decisive action," Mr Bush told diplomats from 83 countries gathered in the White House.
Mr McDowell acknowledged that intelligence agencies, which he described as "by their very nature, secretive and possessive of their information", were reluctant to share all they knew. The ministers asked the EU's foreign policy chief, Mr Javier Solana, to present proposals for improving intelligence- sharing within the next six months.
The EU's biggest five member-states, however, indicated that their intelligence services would co-operate more closely but would control the flow of information to other member-states. The French Interior Minister, Mr Nicholas Sarkozy, said that his country, along with Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain, would lead the way, but could not be expected to share information with 25 countries.
"We have the most important intelligence services. We are used to working together. Intelligence is the most difficult and complex thing to share. You have to protect your sources, which is already hard enough to do within the same country," he said.
Ministers from the biggest five countries met separately in advance of yesterday's meeting of all 25 ministers, which was called on the initiative of the German Interior Minister, Mr Otto Schily.
Mr McDowell rejected suggestions that the Irish presidency had been slow to respond to the Madrid bombings, leaving the bigger member-states to co-ordinate a European response to the attacks.
He defended the Government's decision to send the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, to Madrid last Friday, when most countries were represented by a prime minister, deputy prime minister or foreign minister and insisted that yesterday's meeting was an Irish presidency initiative.
"It would be misleading to say that the larger member-states took the initiative. Otto Schily and I discussed it on Sunday. If you want to do substantive work, it takes time," he said.
The ministers called on all member-states to move swiftly to implement anti-terrorism measures that have already been agreed, including the European Arrest Warrant and measures to confiscate criminal assets.
They agreed to consider a number of new measures, including rules obliging telephone and Internet service-providers to retain data on communications traffic. They agreed to set up a European register of criminal convictions and disqualifications, but rejected a call by the Commission for such a register to include details of those who had been questioned but not convicted of terrorist offences.
EU foreign ministers will discuss the proposals when they meet in Brussels on Monday, and EU leaders will begin their summit next Thursday with a discussion of the aftermath of the Madrid attacks.
The leaders will adopt a declaration on terrorism that will outline the measures approved yesterday and will make a political commitment to come to the aid of any member-state that suffers a terrorist attack.
The statement, based on the text of a "solidarity clause" in the EU's draft constitutional treaty, will make clear that it is up to each member-state to choose how to comply with the solidarity commitment.