EU anti-terrorist measures will include clampdown on firearms

The European Union announced plans yesterday to expand anti-terrorism legislation early next year and clamp down on the availability of firearms in response to the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday that claimed the lives of more than 129 people.

Speaking in Brussels yesterday, home affairs commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said the EU’s executive arm would come forward with a proposal by the end of the month modifying existing counter-terrorism legislation.

This would harmonise the criminalisation of certain activities, including defining the category of “foreign fighter”, the term used to describe EU nationals who travel abroad to fight for terrorist organisations and return to their home countries to take parts in acts of terrorism.

The commission also adopted a package of measures to make it more difficult to acquire firearms in the EU. The proposals – which had already been outlined in April but will now be accelerated in light of the Paris attacks – will amend the current EU firearms directive.

Weapon recategorisation

The amendments will re-categorise certain semi-automatic firearms to ensure that they are not held by private individuals, incorporate blank-firing weapons into the scope of the directive to ensure that they are not changed into firearms, and introduce tighter marking of firearms to improve the traceability of weapons across the bloc.

“The package on firearms today needs to be reinforced,” said Mr Avrampoulos. “We need more actions to protect our citizens from the harm caused by smuggled Kalashnikovs.”

EU justice and home affairs ministers are due in Brussels tomorrow for an emergency meeting convened in the wake of the Paris attacks, at which the EU’s security agenda will be the main topic for discussion.

As security remained tight around the European institutions and the wider Brussels area, a vigil was held in the Brussels district of Molenbeek where at least three of the Paris attackers lived.

More than 2,500 people gathered to show solidarity with the victims of Friday night’s terrorist attacks, with a minute’s silence observed.

Addressing the crowd, the mayor of Molenbeek, Françoise Schepmans, said she was “profoundly shocked” at the events in Paris and insisted that Molenbeek was not a base for jihadism.

Molenbeek attackers

Abdelhamid Abaaoud

, the 27-year-old Belgian man believed to be the mastermind behind Friday night’s attacks, lived in the Molenbeek area. The brothers Brahim and

Salah Abdeslam

, who were directly involve in the Paris atrocities, also lived close by. The 31-year-old Brahim Abdeslam blew himself up on Boulevard Voltaire in Paris on Friday, while Salah Abdeslam was still the subject yesterday of an international police search.

Porous border

He is believed to have been stopped by police crossing the French-Belgian border after Friday night’s attacks, but was allowed to go free.

Two men from the area who are believed to have driven Salah Abdeslam from Paris to Belgium were still under police custody in Belgium yesterday.

It emerged yesterday that Belgian police interviewed the two Abdeslam brothers before the attacks.

Salah Abdeslam had been previously arrested for drug offences and may have spent time in prison in Brussels with Abdelhamid Abaaoud, according to reports.