Paper Titles & Abstracts

The post of European Union (EU) Counterterrorism Coordinator (CTC) has often been criticized as ineffectual; the role allows the incumbent to play a role in coordinating the counterterrorism activities of the member states, but it provides no operational powers or measures to deal with uninterested, lackadaisical, or recalcitrant member states. Therefore, by lacking such powers, it ostensibly appears that the EU's CTC is at the mercy of the member states. The combination of the apparent reasons behind the resignation of Gijs de Vries (the first holder of the CTC position), the position staying unoccupied for six months after de Vries' resignation before being given to Gilles de Kerchove, and the fact that it is difficult to co-ordinate twenty-seven member states with varying interests in counter-terrorism augurs badly for the importance of the position of the EU CTC. However, the United Nations (UN) has recently announced its intention of creating its own counterterrorism coordinator. This move by the UN leads us to question whether the EU's CTC is just a coordinatory role, as many have suggested, or whether he is now establishing himself as an actor on the international stage. In this article, we point out that, despite the fact that the post of EU CTC remains primarily that of coordinating responses to terrorism between member states, de Kerchove is becoming a more recognizable figure on the international stage, being actively involved in relations between the EU and third states.