After a spate of violent attacks throughout Europe in autumn 2020, including the beheading of French schoolteacher Samuel Paty, and the shooting of four people in Vienna, several European interior ministers issued a joint statement of solidarity against terrorism.
The first draft that was authored by Austria, France and Germany included several mentions of Islam, but was significantly watered down in the final version due to opposition from most other EU member states that did not embrace a ‘clash of civilisations’ rhetoric on EU values. The final version included only one explicit mention of Islam and removed a proposal to sanction migrants who refuse to integrate. It called on EU member states to take “systematic action to prevent radicalisation”.
However, countries supporting more hawkish policies regarding the surveillance of Muslims, such as Austria and France, did not give up. Instead they worked towards the inception of the “Vienna Forum on Countering Segregation and Extremism in the Context of Integration”, an annual conference established to intensify cooperation in the fight against “political Islam”, according to the Austrian Integration Minister Susanne Raab, of the conservative ÖVP (Austrian People’s Party), which was recently shaken by corruption allegations. The first iteration took place on 28 October, without much global media attention.
