The European Parliament decided by 527 votes to 73, with 36 abstentions, to set up a special committee on terrorism, its responsibilities, numerical strength and term of office.

Competence : the main task of the Special Committee shall be to examine, analyse and evaluate with impartiality facts provided by law enforcement authorities of the Member States, competent EU agencies and recognised experts and the extent of the terrorist threat on European soil and to propose appropriate measures to enable the European Union and its Member to help prevent, investigate and prosecute terrorism-related crimes.

The special committee on terrorism shall be vested with the following responsibilities:

identify and analyse, with impartiality and according to an evidence based approach, the potential faults and malfunctions that have allowed recent terrorist attacks in different Member States to occur; examine and assess the implementation of existing measures and instruments in the fields of external border management, including the malfunction of external border checks that have allowed individuals to enter Europe with false documents and to propose appropriate measures to close the identified gaps; identify deficiencies in the sharing of judicial, law enforcement and intelligence information among Member States; assess the impact of the EU anti-terrorism legislation and its implementation on fundamental rights; assess the availability and the effectiveness of all resources allocated to competent authorities involved in the fight against terrorism and identify technical, structural and legal limitations to investigation capacities; investigate the current mechanisms available for victims of terrorism; collect information and to analyse the process of radicalisation, and the effectiveness ; assess the efficiency of cooperation between Member States, as well as the efficiency of cooperation between competent authorities, obliged entities and law enforcement authorities, in fighting money laundering and terrorism financing; make any recommendations that it deems to be necessary in all the above mentioned matters and, to those ends, to establish the necessary contacts, make visits and hold hearings with the EU institutions and relevant agencies and with the international and national institutions.

The powers, staff and available resources of Parliament’s standing committees with responsibility for matters concerning the adoption, monitoring and implementation of EU legislation relating to the area of responsibility of the special committee shall remain unchanged.

Parliament decided that the information obtained by the special committee shall be used solely for the performance of its duties and shall not be disclosed to third parties. Such information shall not be made public if it contains material of a secret or confidential nature or names persons.

Lastly, Parliament decided that the special committee shall have 30 members.