The attacks in France, coupled with violence in Germany and Belgium, show that Europe’s efforts to work together to fight terrorism have been ineffective.

Europe’s unity issue stems from the fact that although Europe has an inter-state alliance, the EU, that alliance does not make it truly unified. The EU does not and cannot operate within the parameters of a state because it is not one. Unfortunately, within those parameters is unified security.

“We learned after 9/11 some very, very painful lessons about how the different parts of the US government, whether it be FBI, CIA, NSA, and others, needed to work better together,” Brennan said.

The difference is that the FBI, CIA, and NSA are all under the US government. Different institutions within a nation are more likely to cooperate than different institutions from different nations, no matter the endgame.

But this is just a consequence of the way the EU works. The truth is, in theory the EU can be highly effective, but because of the nature of how it operates, its member states suffer at the hands of real life issues. It isn’t a state, and so does not have the power of a state.

Source: This is why Europe’s war against terrorism is ineffective – Business Insider