Collapse the security architectures!
Against NATO, G20, G8, Frontex and the “Stockholm Programme”!
¡No Pasarán! France | Gipfelsoli | Dissent! France | NoLager Bremen | Resistance des deux rives / Widerstand der zwei Ufer | transact | six hills Berlin | kein mensch ist illegal Hanau
Since the end of the last millennium a modification of the “security architecture” within the EU takes place, which have been accelerated by the attacks of 11 September 2001 in the United States. Visible phenomena are for example the entanglement of internal and external security, a “pooling” of prosecution authorities and intelligence sevices and a simplified data exchange.
At the technical level we are confronted with new digital surveillance cameras, satellite surveillance, biometrics, drones, software for intelligent search in databases and new broadband networks to manage this huge flood of digital data.
New institutions and authorities have been created, including the “European Police Office Europol, the police academy CEPOL, the border agency Frontex and the” Committee for the Management of Operational Cooperation ” of all police agencies of the EU within its intelligence operation assessment center.
At the initiative of former French Defense Minister (and current Interior Minister) Michèle Alliot-Marie the “European Gendarmerie Force (EGF) was founded and has been established in 2004. The EGF shall ensure the “public order”, combat insurgency, obtain intelligence information and protect property in conflict areas.
The security industry is likely one of the few branches that profits massive from the current crisis of capitalism and the resulting battles
.
Europe’s police forces are preparing themselve for protest and resistance against the impact of the crisis. Even the chairman of the International Monetary Fund IMF admits that in future more riots are expected.
The institutions of the “leading economic nations” are forced to re-organize themselves. The “summits” of NATO, G8 and G20 are of central importance for this reorganization. Topics such as climate, migration and agriculture are considered as threat to the security of a “western lifestyle”.
Within the European Union, domestic political changements are taking place, whose effects are currently difficult predict.
Every five years, the interior and justice ministers of the new EU adopt new directives for a common domestic policy. The “Tampere Program”, terminated in 1999 under the Finnish Presidency, was primarily a “management of migration flows”: In addition to the appreciation of the police authority Europol was the establishment of a “Task Force of EU Police Chiefs’” which deals with “international terrorism” and “violent political activism”.
With the “Hague Program” in 2004, it has been agreed upon the creation of an “area of freedom, security and justice”. Again it was decided on intensifications of migration policy, including the construction of Border Agency “Frontex” and the interception of refugees already in their home countries. “The Hague Program” puts the “defense of terrorism” in the center. At the level of information exchange and cooperation was now count on the “principle of availability”.
The guidelines of 2004 are already implemented by many EU member states:
Standardization of the “terrorism” legislation, data retention, expansion of existing databases and shared access, cross-border police cooperation for example at sporting events or political mass protests, “Border Management”, fingerprints when application for EU visa, from 2009 new biometric identifiers in identity documents, the development of security research, cooperation in criminal matters, police abroad etc.
”The Hague Program” is running out and a new program should be decided on in autumn of 2009, in Stockholm under the Swedish EU Presidency.
During the German EU Presidency 2007, the German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble created with the, then European Commissioner for Internal Affairs ( “Justice and Home Affairs”), Franco Frattini, the “Future Group”. This “Future Group” describes itself as “informal body” of European interior ministers, which drafted guidelines for European home affairs.
To adopt the new “Stockholm program”, the “Future Group” submitted a wish-list for “police cooperation, fight against terrorism, management of missions in third countries, migration, asylum and border management, civil protection, new technologies and information networks “. Priorities are the maintenance of the “European model”, “coping with the growing interdependence between internal and external security” and ensuring of “Europe-wide the best possible data networks”.
The measures which shall be decided in Stockholm will only be noticeable by the member states within its ratification in a few years. There are profound changes in the game: development and standardization of police databases, a central population register, ”cross-border online search”, more control of the Internet, better satellite tracking, risk analysis “software, ”e-borders” and “e-justice”, common deportation planes and flights, new refugee camp in “third countries”, the use of the military defense of migration, more police interventions outside the EU, the expansion of paramilitary “European Gendarmerie Force”, more cooperation between domestic and foreign secret services, etc.
The aim is a kind of domestic NATO, with the creation of a “Euro-Atlantic cooperation in the area of freedom, security and justice” from 2014.
Also the NATO attaches value to the central role of the European domestic politics.
On one hand, more and more police missions in “third countries” were launched, which perform there tasks of the military, strike down local uprisings and train local police units.
On the other hand, NATO-strategists play the ball back to the European interior ministers and refer to the importance of European “Homeland Security” without a “strong defense” to the outside wouldn’t be possible. The NATO sees itself within member countries as the guarantor of security of “critical infrastructure” (like energy, transportation, communication).
The strategy document “Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World” by five ex-generals, which are anchored in the defense industry, calls for the expansion of “civil-military cooperation”. Considered as a “civilian elements” are for example Police, intelligence, research, academies, civil protection but also the private security industry. NATO wants to intensify the fall back on the “European Gendarmerie Force”.
With the “civil-military cooperation” the militarization of social conflicts is increasing, underpinned by domestic political rearmament and new” anti-terror “laws.
The former EU Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs, Franco Frattini, has changed in Berlusconi’s Cabinet after the elections in Italy 2008. As the new foreign minister, he is now responsible for the G8 on the Sardinian island of La Maddalena. Frattini sees “security” as the central profile of the new G8 structures: “Europe can, rather than just a consumer, be a producer of safety. But EU and NATO need to integrate, rather to interfere with each others. We back up these thoughts in the context of the G8”.
Italy has adopted a “security package” in May 2008 with far-reaching tightenings for Migrants. After the EU already equipped Libya with financial help for refugee defense, also Italy signed a new cooperation agreement.
The Italian arms corporate group “Finmeccanica” delivers speedboats and the Interior Ministry is pleased that migration would now be diminished on “zero”.
Frattini traveled early 2009 to Angola, Sierra Leone, Senegal and Nigeria to negotiate over “readmission agreements” for migrants, to equip the countries with refugee camps, and to introduce tamper-proof passports. It’s again all about the securisation of raw material and police enforcement: In return Frattini acknowledges an audience with the G8 summit for the countries, to “promote the dialogue between oil producing and - consuming countries”.
In the delegation travelling Frattini, the Italian police chief who immediately implement new contracts for police training and cooperation procedure.
As the consequence of the collapse of global capitalism around the world, more uprisings are expected. With the recent riots in Greece, Iceland, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, France, Guadeloupe and Lampedusa, the EU became the venue of intense contradictions and militant struggles which.
In the numerous directives, bilateral agreements and treaties, of the past few years concerted measures for “Europe as an area of freedom, security and justice”, are long ago brought into position against anti-communist resistance and radical projects and movements are covered with investigations and prosecutions for “terrorism”. “Joint investigation teams” research - supported by Europol - international networks. Manuals and databases on “Troublemakers” will be bring protests at major international events under control.
Resistance against the increase in surveillance and control, against repression and anti-riot is still stuck too much often on a national level.
Therefore we call to push the development of a transnational struggle against the “security architecture”, in 2009 at several cross-border mobilizations, whether they are timbered by the NATO, G8 or EU.
We see the action day at the NATO summit as the kick off of the campaign for a “Summer of Resistance 2009” against the global “security regime”
