The European Commission decided today to speed up work on a central alert system to coordinate pan-European reponses to large-scale terror attacks.
The European Union stepped up anti-terror co-operation after the September 11th, 2001, attacks on the United States, and Britain had already announced it planned to boost joint efforts during its six-month presidency of the EU which began on July 1st.
EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said the 25-nation bloc needed a system to enable it to respond more effectively and in a co-ordinated way to "terrorist attacks such as these that happened today" - referring to this morning's explosions on London's transport system.
"Next week, on July 13th, the commission will discuss further measures in the fight against terrorism, in particular a proposal for a terrorism-related rapid response mechanism," Mr Frattini said in a statement.
Last October, the EU executive proposed a central alert system to combine different existing mechanisms monitoring and co-ordinating European action in natural and man-made disasters.
Alongside the new system, called Argus, the commission will also create a crisis centre to ensure co-operation among its own departments during an emergency.
The commission has also proposed EU states take joint action to protect critical infrastructure such as transport networks like those attacked in London and Madrid, which was hit by train bombs in March 2004.