Europe faces a “huge risk of terrorist attacks” over the Christmas holiday period due to the polarization and anger spreading internationally over Israel’s month-long military offensive in Gaza following Hamas’s October 7 attack.
“With the war between Israel and Hamas and the polarization it causes in our society, with the upcoming holiday season, there is a huge risk of terrorist attacks in the European Union,” EU’s home affairs chief Ylva Johansson said ahead of a meeting of EU home affairs ministers in Brussels.
The warning came days after a radical Islamist known to authorities fatally stabbed a German-Filipino tourist and wounded two other people with a hammer near the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
“We saw (it happening) recently in Paris, unfortunately we have seen it earlier as well,” she said, as EU interior ministers gathered in Brussels. She provided no details about any police or security information that might have led to her warning.
EU’s home affairs chief said that she drew the threat conclusion herself based on the high security levels in some of the 27 EU member countries and an increase in reports of antisemitic incidents.
Johansson, who is a Swede, pledged to make an additional €30 million ($32.5 million) available to support EU member states to protect places of worship and other public spaces under the Internal Security Fund.
She also suggested precautionary measures and called on all countries to implement EU measures to crackdown on online hate speech and stifle the financial resources used by extremist groups.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the attack in France highlights “just how acute and how serious the threat posed by Islamist terrorism is currently in the EU.”
She said that the war in Gaza is “exacerbating this situation” and added that “Our security agencies are working very closely together. We must keep a particularly close eye on the Islamist threats right now and take action against Islamist propaganda together with neighboring countries”.
Spain’s home affairs minister Fernando Grande Marlaska, whose government holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, said that “in an especially delicate international context, the situation in the Middle East could sharpen tensions, heighten polarisation and fuel terrorism.”
“Clearly, we can’t nor should permit this,” he explained, adding that cooperation between EU member states is critical to tackle the threat.