Three dimensions of modern terrorism in the European Union

Abstract

Due to the political, economic and media importance of the European Union, as well as on account of its cultural and social diversification, the EU constitutes a prominent target of terrorist attacks. The scale, character and specific nature of these attacks are well evidenced by the annual reports by Europol. This paper aims to discuss the nature and characteristics of modern terrorism in the European Union in recent years with particular emphasis given to the latest data published by Europol in 2018. The issues addressed include, among other things, the threat of terrorism in the EU posed by jihadist terrorists, separatists, and left-, and right-wing extremists. Another issue concerns individuals arrested and convicted in the EU for terrorist activity. The main proposal made in this paper is that terrorism in the EU has a vertical, horizontal and transcendent dimension. The vertical dimension is related to the extensive range of innovative tactics and strategy. The horizontal dimension refers to the potential of attacking various targets in individual EU member states. Finally, the transcendent dimension concerns the diverse ideological inspiration of terrorists, be it Islam, separatism, extreme left-, or right-wing ideology.