At Brussels summit, European Union leaders call for tougher measures to stop spread of chemical weapons, combat spying

Brussels: European Union leaders on Friday pledged to crack down harder on chemical weapons and step up efforts to combat spying, as Europe frets about threats from Russia. Three months after a nerve agent attack in the British city of Salisbury, blamed on Russia, united the European Union in condemnation of Moscow, the bloc’s leaders said they wanted new measures to stop the spread of chemical weapons. [caption id=“attachment_4628431” align=“alignleft” width=“381”] The round table meeting at the EU summit in Brussels. AP[/caption] A summit of European Union leaders in Brussels called for “the adoption as soon as possible of a new European Union regime of restrictive measures to address the use and proliferation of chemical weapons”. The call came a day after the international community voted to beef up the powers of the world chemical weapons watchdog, allowing it to name those responsible for toxic arms attacks in Syria. The Salisbury attack, along with repeated gas attacks in Syria’s bloody civil war and the assassination of North Korea leader Kim Jong-un’s half brother using VX nerve agent in Malaysia, have led to fears that the century-old taboo against chemical weapons was being eroded. The European Commission, the European Union’s powerful executive arm, said Wednesday’s decision to boost the powers of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was a “crucial step towards preserving and upholding the global norm against the use of chemical weapons”. And with European nations increasingly anxious about Russian interference in elections across the continent, the summit tasked the commission with coming up with “a coordinated European Union response to the challenge of disinformation”. Leaders also urged European Union countries to cooperate more closely and in consultation with NATO, to combat the threat from “hostile intelligence activities”.