Terrorism - a consequence of fanatism, radicalism and intolerance

Gustavo Arístegui is Member of the Spanish Parliament and Spokesman in the Foreign Affairs Parliamentary Commission for the Popular Party.

He served in the European Division, in the Africa and Middle East Division as Deputy Head of Middle East Affairs in the time of the first Gulf War (1990-91), as Deputy Chief of Mission of the Spanish Embassy to Libya (1991-1993) where he was Charge D’Affaires (Acting Ambassador) for well over a year, and as Deputy Chief of Mission of the Spanish Embassy to Jordan (1993-96).

Gustavo de Aristegui | Gustavo Manuel de Arístegui y San Román

The lecture "TERRORISM AS A SECURITY CHALLENGE FOR THE EU" was organized in cooperation with the Asociación Popular Española de Bélgica and took place in the European Office of the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation (KAS) on March 19th 2007. It featured Mr. Gustavo Arístegui - Member of the Spanish Parliament and spokesman in the Foreign Affairs Parliamentary Commission for the Partido Popular- who presented his view on the topic. Mr. Arístegui is the author of the books El islamismo contra el Islam, published in 2004, and La yihad en España (2005).

According to him, terrorism has to be compared now to a fight for imposing ideologies. In a way, the terrorist threat has to be taken more seriously than ever before. Illegal commission is a cause for the booming terrorism. The European Union has to take into account those changes and be aware that terrorism will keep on evolving. The EU has to develop a flexible policy strategy and be able to adapt quickly to the moving trends of a more and more “imaginative terrorism”. Mr. Arístegui also insisted on the fact that terrorism should not to be mixed with religion - Islam should not to be mixed with Islamism. Terrorism is a consequence of fanatism, (religious) radicalism and intolerance. Illegal commissions are the backbone of terrorists groups. This free flow of illegal commission and other funds should be stopped.

Terrorist groups are more and more refined in the way they recruit members. They spread their recruitment to schools, prisons and poor suburbs in European cities.

Gustavo de Arístegui stressed the importance of terrorist’s groups´ networks. Networks of major terrorist groups such as Al-Qaida are very complicated and well organized, and include mostly very influential people.

Gustavo de Arístegui concluded with some suggestions prevention is one of the key elements of the battle against terrorism. The European Union has to tackle the recruitment of new terrorists and be aware of the methods and trends of new forms of terrorism.

In the following debate, Mr. Arístegui added that the EU has to develop a multidimensional strategy. EU members have to combine their efforts against common enemies and have to forget former divergence of opinion. Finally, he reminded the importance of working together with non EU-countries, particularly with the United States.