Governance gaps in EU counter-terrorism: Implications for democracy and constitutionalism

This chapter gives the scope of the Europeans (EU's) counter-terrorism activities since 2001, before going on to consider the paper's framing concepts of constitutionalism and legitimacy. It then assesses EU counter-terrorism by reference to provenance, process, democratic oversight and effectiveness in order to consider the extent to which EU constitutionalism may be compromised or called into question in the field of counter-terrorism as so far engaged with by the Union. A further concern as to provenance arises in relation to opportunism and 'creep' in EU counter-terrorism. The stakeholder perspectives that are presented in the chapter, and which inform its structure, were gleaned as part of a European Commission funded project entitled SECILE (Securing Europe through Counter-Terrorism: Impact, Legitimacy and Effectiveness), which engaged with operational end users through focus groups, civil society through a focus group, policy-makers in EU counter-terrorism through semi-structured interviews and a mixture of these categories through a one-day workshop run on a 'Chatham House rules' basis.