VP/HR — Terrorist threat emanating from Bosnia and the wider Balkans

30.5.2017

Question for written answer E-003601-17
to the Commission (Vice-President/High Representative)
Rule 130
Matteo Salvini (ENF) , Edouard Ferrand (ENF)

Almost every recent terrorist attack in Europe over the past few years has had Bosnian and Balkan connections, including the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris in January 2015, the subsequent Paris attacks in March and November 2015, the terrorist attacks in Brussels in March 2016 and the attack on the Christmas Market in Berlin in December 2016.

Bosnia is one of the leading European suppliers of jihad volunteers. A considerable body of evidence shows that Bosnia possesses a complete infrastructure for recruiting, training, supplying and facilitating the travel of Islamist extremists across Europe. It is widely believed that the Islamist extremist infrastructure in Bosnia is receiving surreptitious support from hard core Islamists within Bosnian Muslim political and security circles.

Apart from threatening European security, these elements are also destabilising Bosnia itself.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has claimed that the greatest threat facing Germany is Islamist terrorism; MI6 head Alex Younger has recently warned that the scale of the terrorist threat to the UK is ‘unprecedented,’ and Europol chief Rob Wainwright has claimed that Europe is now facing its biggest terrorist threat since 9/11.

Given these warnings, can the VP/HR tell us if European citizens will be protected against the terrorist threat emanating from Bosnia and the wider Balkans?