Bring them into the fold. Local actors and transnational governance of preventive counterterrorism in the European Union
- For policymakers
- Summary created: 2025
This paper examines how the European Union governs preventive counterterrorism (also known as counter-radicalisation) through indirect means. It explores how the EU enlists local actors (teachers, youth workers, NGOs, municipal officials) to implement its prevention policies, despite national security formally remaining a Member State competence. Based on interviews with practitioners from across Europe, the paper shows how EU influence expands through funding, training, and knowledge networks like the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN).
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Since 9/11, European security has increasingly focused on preventing radicalisation rather than reacting to terrorism. This “preventive turn” shifted responsibility from the state to local communities and social services, embedding security concerns into education, welfare, and youth work.
However, this approach presents key challenges and introduces new tensions in European national security governance.
Firstly, it allows the EU to extend its governance reach “at a distance,” shaping national security indirectly through local actors. Secondly, it also securitises social policy, making community actors part of security governance, often without adequate resources or oversight. Thirdly, while it empowers local practitioners and fosters collaboration, it can also reinforce stereotypes—particularly toward European Muslim communities—by framing them as inherently vulnerable to radicalisation.
This research responds to policymakers’ need to understand how EU-level preventive counterterrorism works in practice—how it is translated, accepted, or contested on the ground—and what unintended social and political consequences this governance model produces. At the same time, however, this approach allows the EU to maintain a semblance of democratic participation while indirectly governing preventive counter-terrorism efforts. The EU’s strategy has been to absorb practitioners already working on related issues, thereby expanding RAN’s reach and aligning local actors with EU policy objectives.
The EU’s indirect governance is practically facilitated through the production and dissemination of knowledge within RAN, which initially faced challenges due to the dominance of English, limiting participation from non-English-speaking countries. Over time, RAN has become more inclusive, with materials available in multiple languages, reflecting a broader engagement of non-Anglophone countries. However, the knowledge produced often reflects national interests rather than transnational challenges, with sensitive topics like religion frequently avoided. The EU also provides substantial financial resources to RAN, primarily through procurement contracts and broader funding mechanisms like the Internal Security Funds (ISF). This funding is crucial for implementing preventive efforts but reveals tensions in resource distribution across Member States, with countries in Central and Eastern Europe heavily reliant on EU funding due to a lack of national support.
Key findings
The EU governs preventive counterterrorism indirectly through local actors. The EU exerts significant influence over national counterterrorism policy without directly controlling it, by mobilising local practitioners—teachers, youth workers, and NGOs—through networks like the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN).
Evidence
Interviews show that participation in RAN gives local actors recognition as “first-line practitioners,” access to EU training, and funding opportunities. This draws them into the EU’s prevention system, even though counterterrorism remains under national authority.
An interviewee from Poland noted that professionals in fields like youth crime counselling were brought into RAN because they were experts in relevant areas, even if they did not initially identify as experts on radicalisation (Interviewee 4, Poland).
What it means
This strategy allows the EU to influence national preventive counter-terrorism efforts while maintaining a façade of democratic participation and aligning local actors with EU governance objectives. The resulting indirect governance effectively expands the EU’s role in internal security while formally respecting Member States’ sovereignty. However, it also blurs accountability—local actors carry out EU priorities without clear national oversight. This “soft” governance model allows flexibility but risks inconsistency and weak democratic scrutiny.
The EU strengthens its security governance by producing and circulating knowledge—toolkits, best practices, and trainings—that practitioners use to frame their work. However, the EU's knowledge on preventive counter-terrorism produced within the RAN also reflects national interests and likewise avoids sensitive topics, limiting its transnational applicability.
Evidence
Many acknowledged that RAN participation “changed their mindset,” making EU frameworks the default lens for understanding radicalisation. While RAN meetings initially overrepresented countries like the United Kingdom, this has shifted towards more pluralistic national representation. However, the knowledge produced often avoids controversial issues like religion, as highlighted by an Italian interviewee who noted that discussions on Islam are politically sensitive and thus avoided (Interviewee 9, Italy). This rendered RAN materials as useful but overly general, focused on “ready-to-use” solutions while avoiding politically sensitive issues.
What it means
Knowledge exchange fosters cohesion and professional identity across borders, giving practitioners a shared language. Yet, the depoliticised, one-size-fits-all approach limits reflection on context-specific causes of radicalisation, especially socio-political or structural ones. This narrows the policy debate and risks overlooking community-level tensions and discrimination that drive alienation. At the end of the day, the EU's approach to knowledge production reproduces a standardising ''toolkit'' approach that rather than effectively fighting radicalisaiton allows localisation of EU norms without provoking national sensitivities, ensuring alignment with EU security governance goals.
Access to EU resources creates unequal participation across Europe.Material incentives, especially EU funding, drive local participation in preventive counterterrorism—but access to these resources is uneven across Member States. Ultimately EU funding is crucial for implementing preventive efforts but reveals tensions in resource distribution across Member States.
Evidence
The EU provides substantial financial resources to national prevnetive programmes and activities through the RAN, with a total budget of EUR 1.93 billion for the 2020–2027 period. However, countries in Central and Eastern Europe rely heavily on EU funding due to a lack of national support, as noted by an interviewee from Slovakia who stated that most prevention funding comes from the EU (Interviewee 5, Slovakia) and that EU grants are often the only source of funding for prevention work, while Western countries have national schemes. Complex EU application processes and English-language requirements further privilege experienced or Western-based organisations.
What it means
The EU's funding structures are central to local prevention actors across Europe, but they also highlight the challenges of implementing a one-size-fits-all approach in a field characterised by diverse national needs. Moreover, existing EU’s funding mechanisms sustain prevention networks but reproduce existing inequalities, concentrating influence in better-resourced states and actors. As a result, some regions—especially in Eastern and Southern Europe—become implementers of externally designed policies rather than co-creators. This may hinder genuine local ownership and long-term sustainability.
The EU's indirect governance through RAN allows it to maintain influence over preventive counter-terrorism efforts while avoiding direct control.
Evidence
Practitioners understand that their work is guided by the European Commission but ultimately dependent on local approval. An interviewee from Austria noted that the RAN Steering Committee is more of an advisory board, with the Commission setting topics for the following year (Interviewee 2, Austria).
What it means
This dynamic allows the EU to maintain a semblance of democratic participation while indirectly governing preventive counter-terrorism efforts, aligning local actors with EU governance objectives.
The ‘preventive turn’ securitises social policy and risks community stigmatisation. By embedding counter-radicalisation in social work, education, and welfare, the EU has transformed social policy into a tool of security governance.
Evidence
Practitioners across multiple countries noted that prevention efforts disproportionately target Muslim communities and that “radicalisation” is often equated with Islam. Some interviewees warned that this labelling undermines trust, as communities feel approached only after terrorist attacks. As one Austrian practitioner explained, even well-intentioned prevention work can “risk stigmatising” Muslim communities — “If you identify a certain group as highly vulnerable and approach them after an attack, they will reject you, and I would understand. They ask: why are you coming to us now?” (Interviewee 2, Austria).
What it means
This securitisation of social policy allows states and the EU to extend governance “at a distance” but risks alienating the very communities whose inclusion is essential. It raises ethical and political questions about surveillance, discrimination, and the long-term legitimacy of preventive approaches. The findings call for greater transparency, accountability, and community participation in shaping prevention strategies.
Proposed action
To create a Community-Centred Prevention Partnership (CCPP) inside RAN: a funded, co-produced, accountable mechanism that shifts EU prevention from top-down “toolkits + grants” to locally owned, de-securitised practice.Replace the current one-way model (EU → practitioner toolkit/funding → local delivery) with a formal partnership model that (a) channels dedicated EU funding to community-led prevention projects, (b) requires co-production of knowledge with affected communities, and (c) builds independent accountability and safeguards against profiling and stigmatisation.This is specific (a new CCPP unit/process within RAN), actionable, and directly targets the securitisation, legitimacy and inequality problems identified in the paper.
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