The president of the Federation of European Risk Management Associations (Ferma), Thierry van Santen, says European risk managers are “very shocked” by the inadequate response of European governments to the economic threat posed by terrorism.
His remarks follow heightened concern about terrorism following the July attacks on the London transport system.
Van Santen said: "Day after day we see that terrorism has no frontier, and that one of the terrorists' objectives is to destabilise the economies of developed countries.
“We, in Ferma, as risk management specialists, are very shocked to see that European states are unable to implement a global financial instrument that is able to respond to very major threats resulting from acts of terrorism.
"Instead, we have a variety of systems, or nothing, state by state with limited resources for significant costs when we would need an effective, strong, and global tool able to pick up physical damages and, indeed, also some of the major financial consequences that might follow."
As well as the UK a number of other Ferma member countries, such as Spain, France and Italy, have suffered terrorist attacks, and European businesses have been hit by terrorism in other parts of the world.