Video: https://youtu.be/lRbh0Keo1nE
The most recent and horrendous attacks in Orlando, but also in France last night, remind us that terrorism is global, and yet extremely local, as the majority of the perpetrators are our own citizens.
Born and raised on our territories, educated in our schools, now radicalised and turning against their own fellow citizens, turning against our values, giving in to propaganda of hate, inspired by an ideology of destruction.
The fact that these Europeans were radicalised to violent extremism, on our soil, says something about the social fabric of our societies, and the need to strengthen its resilience.
As Tibor already explained, such efforts start primarily at the local level, involving teachers as much as youth counsellors and police officers.
Our response to fighting radicalisation and recruitment to terrorism needs to be holistic. And the EU level can support Member States in these efforts.
We have several operational as well as security tools at hand. While prevention and avoiding that people become radicalised in the first place is our priority, in parallel our core security approach needs to be reinforced, with enhanced information sharing on suspected individuals.
Those returning to Europe from conflict areas are a particular concern and that is why we will propose a review of the Schengen Information System, and why we have proposed systematic checks at the external borders for everyone entering and exiting, whether they are EU or non-EU citizens.
Then there is the internet: our most important battleground to counter radicalisation. That is where our youth is exposed to the poison of terrorist content and recruitment.
The recent attack in Orlando perfectly demonstrates this: the perpetrator was strongly radicalised, on his own, purely by using the internet. This is precisely why we launched the EU Internet Forum in December 2015.
We brought together Ministers, Europol and the CEOs of major internet companies. We agreed on a concrete voluntary partnership to refer content from the Member States to Europol's Internet Referral Unit – and from there to the companies for immediate deletion.
We are now taking this one step further through a Joint Referral Mechanism developed with internet companies, to create a database of deleted terrorist content.
Alongside this mechanism, we are also intensifying work with civil society, to empower them to offer effective counter-narrative campaigns online through the Civil Society Empowerment Programme.
In addition, we will continue our support to the so-called Strategic Communication Advisory Team, to help Member States build their own anti-radicalisation communication campaigns.
Finally, a lot of these elements come together at the local but at the same time European interconnected level through the Radicalisation Awareness Network Centre of Excellence, where expertise of local practitioners is connected to each other.
Through this network of networks, more than 2.400 local practitioners from all over Europe are working together and learning from each other on addressing the root causes of radicalisation.
We committed a budget of €25 million for the next 4 years to help the Radicalisation Awareness Network fulfil its mission. Over €314 million is available for anti-radicalisation projects for the period 2014-2020. Money has been already allocated and projects are ongoing in different Member States.
The activities of the Radicalisation Awareness Network are also expanding outside the Union to priority third-countries in the Middle East, North Africa and the Western Balkans. A first mission took place already in Turkey, with positive feedback for future work.
Ladies and gentlemen, tackling radicalisation is not an easy or straightforward job. Solutions will not come magically from Brussels, but we also don't need to work in silos at local or national level.
That is why we are supporting Member States in all the relevant policy areas, ranging from education, employment, to youth work, the judiciary and penitentiary systems, involving all the relevant stakeholders and government levels.
Resilience against radicalisation will come through a combination of these actions and partners.
From our side, today we make clear that we are here to help and support in every way we can.