Europol will change the methodology it uses for the preparation of the annual report on the situation of terrorism in the European Union, which in the last edition caused controversy after including the Catalan and Basque independence movements as examples of "ethnocentrist and separatist terrorism", a classification which, after the demands made by Together for Catalonia (Junts) to the Spanish government, was downgraded to "extremism". Europol director Catherine De Bolle announced the changes on Tuesday at a meeting of the European Parliament's Europol Scrutiny Group, and thus the European police agency are already working on changes to the document's methodology. As she set out, new filter processes will be introduced before the publication of the report, such as a "review" by an expert group and the verification of the content by member states.
The Europol report aims to detect the EU's dangers in terms of terrorism in order to develop appropriate security and prevention strategies. In the preparation of upcoming reports, three main modifications will be introduced in the methodology. The first is that states have been given "new guidance" on the methodology of the report, which emphasizes that the document must be an "overview of the terrorism situation in the EU" and not an "assessment of the threats." Second, states will now receive a "draft" of the document to do a "content check" and correct what they believe is inaccurate in their contributions. Finally, a group of experts will review the document before it is distributed.
Outrage over treatment of independence movements
The publication of Europol's latest terrorism report, in 2023, provoked pro-independence outrage after it described "separatist groups in Spain" - which included Catalan and Basque independence - as the "most active and violent" in Spain. The European police asserted that these movements "combine separatism with extremist views of the left" and "messages against the Spanish state and institutions, as well as against capitalism". Before the publication of the report, Catalan Republican Left MEP Diana Riba asked the executive director of the European police, Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, the reason for this characterisation, and he stated that the information had been provided by the Spanish state itself, and that in no way was it the work of Europol.
The pro-independence parties demanded a change to Europol, but no change took place until September 5th, when the Catalan president-in-exile, Carles Puigdemont, set it down as one of the preconditions for starting negotiations with the Spanish Socialists (PSOE) on the formation of a new government under Pedro Sánchez. "You cannot negotiate with someone who considers you to be the second most important threat after jihadist terrorism," he commented. At the end of that month, the Spanish interior ministry formally requested the European police to disassociate Catalan independence from terrorism. Finally, at the end of October, Europol published an update to the report in which it stopped linking the independence movement to terrorism and instead defined it as extremist.