Anti terrorism reforms in Spain

Yesterday Spain's Interior Minister, Jose Antonio Alonso, announced a series of legal reforms designed to control terrorist groups in Spain. In a move aimed specifically at fundamentalist Islamic terrorism, Alonso said the government intended to "triple the number of police and civil guards over the next one and a half years".

Alonso also announced reforms affecting citizens' private information to facilitate police control of passengers in planes and boats, bank transactions, the hire of vehicles, hotel occupation etc. He said the the Spanish Civil Guard would soon join Europol to facilitate information with their European partners, and that he would be proposing a change in legislation affecting telecommunications in Spain so that users of pre-payment mobile phone cards could be identified in the future.