Press release by SADF– The South Asia Democratic Forum (SADF) promoted a conference today at the European Parliament. A diverse audience of academics, members of the press, and parliamentarians gathered to discuss the release of a book, titled Terrorism Revisited: Islamism, Political Violence and State-Sponsorship.
The event was hosted by Ryszard Czarnecki, Vice President of the European Parliament. He delivered a speech on the challenges of terrorism to the European Union. The co-editors Paulo Casaca and Dr. Siegfried O. Wolf, as well as one of the authors of the book, Mosa Zahed made presentations followed by a general discussion.
While the book is far-reaching and comprehensive in its analysis of the contemporary political violence that leads to terrorism, the conference emphasised the importance of combating state-sponsored terrorism.
This debate was especially salient for the political situation following President Macron’s Sorbonne speech on ‘the rebuilding of Europe’ dated September 26th 2017, which addressed the need to rethink the European construction on a wide range of issues, and from a long-term perspective.
While many challenges are continuous in nature, involving a reshaping of common treaties and extensive negotiations, others, for example—adapting trade policy to meet crucial challenges such as global migration and counter-terrorism are simultaneously urgent, widely supported, and in the perfect timing to be adopted.
The EU’s Scheme of Generalised Tariff Preferences, (Regulation 978/2012) which is scheduled to last up to 2023, is subject to a mid-term evaluation starting in November 2017. Regulation 978/2012’s most significant novelty was to condition the access of all European trade preferences to a state’s compliance ‘with international conventions on anti-terrorism’ (article 19 1-c).
Brussels, 2017-10-12
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