European securityEC chief: After Paris attacks, Schengen agreement is “comatose”

Published 25 November 2015

Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, has admitted that in the wake of the Paris attacks, the Schengen agreement is “comatose” and warned that the euro will not survive without it. Françoise Schepmans, the mayor of the Brussels district of Molenbeek, received a list with the names of more than eighty suspected jihadists living in the area just one month before the Paris attacks.

Here are the latest terrorism-related developments in Europe:

  • Françoise Schepmans, the mayor of the Brussels district of Molenbeek, received a list with the names of more than eighty suspected jihadists living in the area just one month before the Paris attacks. The New York Times reported (“Terrorism response puts Belgium in a harsh light,” NYT, 24 November 2015) that the list included attacks mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud, and the two brothers who took part in the attacks — Brahim and Salah Abdeslam. Brahim was killed in the attack, while Salah remains at large. Their apartment was just 100 meters from the mayor’s office, and could be viewed from her window.
  • The Telegraph reports that  Brussels is coming back to life after a 4-day lockdown following the intelligence information that an attack on the city was “imminent.” The metro is reopening, as are schools and nurseries. Armed guards continue to patrol city streets, and the city continues to be on Level 4 terror alert, meaning that an attack is imminent.
  • Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, has admitted that in the wake of the Paris attacks, the Schengen agreement is “comatose” and warned that the euro will not survive without it. Juncker was responding to anti-EU parties such as UKIP who argue that the Schengen agreement has granted “free movement of jihad.”
  • Germany said it would contribute 650 soldiers to France’s Mali operation in order to help France in its fight against ISIS in Africa.
  • The French interior minister has confirmed that the global climate change conference, scheduled for next week in Paris, will go ahead as planned, and said that more police officers had been deployed to France’s border crossings and to Le Bourget, where the climate conference will take place.
  • The Independent reports that the French police said the CCTV cameras show that the ringleader of the Paris attacks, Abaaoud, returned to the Bataclan concert venue while a police operation inside the concert hall was still on-going. The police speculates that Abaaoud was probably tasked with video-taping the event to be included later in an ISIS propaganda video. The CCTV shows that Abaaoud was in the street outside the concert hall moments before President Hollande arrived on the scene.
  • The French and Belgian police are searching for Mohammad Abrini, 30, Belgian of Moroccan origin, in connection with the Paris attacks. He was seen by police on video footage at a car fueling station in Ressons, a town north of Paris, on the day before the attacks. The Renault Clio carrying Abrini and another passenger were seen in one of the cars used in the Paris attacks. A Belgian police notice describes Abrini as “dangerous and probably armed.”