This was no knee-jerk reaction to the arrest of the last terrorist implicated in the attack on Paris in November.

The Brussels attack was minutely planned and executed. The logistics behind them must have been tough, such as assembling the bombs and priming them, the planning to pin-point the weakest point in the Brussels airport and setting off a bomb in a crowded carriage of the Brussels metro.

It is only now that Belgian investigators have discovered the existence of a super network, vaster than they ever imagined, able to hide and protect the man all Europe had been searching for, for weeks and weeks.

Just like the locations were carefully chosen for the Paris bloodbath, so too the locations this time were also carefully chosen.

Brussels may have been the city where the bombers lived and operated, but it is far more than that: it is the heart of Europe. By attacking Brussels the bombers were attacking the heart of Europe, treating it with disdain, showing it that the bombers could attack whenever they wanted, how they wanted, and wherever.

By attacking Brussels they were showing the ineffectiveness of the EU and all its structures, more than any market attack on the euro. The metro station in particular is the one used by Eurocrats, just a couple of hundred metres away from the European quarter, a station which, like all the others, was defenceless.

The terrorists have now gone for soft targets – like the Stade de France and the Bataclan in Paris in November, like the airport and the metro in Brussels. For them, the victims are immaterial, random. They could be Muslims just like the terrorists say they are. They don’t go for heavily defended sites but normal ones with normal people whose luck ran out when they were there, at the point where the attacks were made.

The point of the attacks is to show that terrorists can strike at will, wherever they want. To show that the attackers are stronger than all the forces looking for them. But is that all? I feel that not enough thought is being given to where the bombers want to get. Nor is it clear whether we are dealing with one huge network or with separate Islamic terror groups. Is it ISIS or is it al-Qaeda or somewhere in between?

There was a time when terror had a precise aim and focus. The best example I can remember is the terror attack on Madrid’s Atocha station on 11 March 2004, just three days before the Spanish general election. The attack and its aftermath swept Jose Maria Aznar and PP from power. They had been under attack for taking Spain into the Iraq war but until the attack were generally considered as the probable winners of the election.

Other than that, all the terror attacks I can remember, from 9/11 in New York to 7/7 in London, had civilians rather than military as their targets, were random and made massive mayhem and carnage.

The people in New York, with pain and bereavement in their hearts, got back to normal life, as did the people in London. I am not so sure about Brussels and the Belgians and through them Europe.

I have heard it said that Belgium is not a real state: it is a patched-up amalgam of two bits of former states – the Spanish Netherlands and France. There are two communities, the Flemish and the Walloons, who are eternal rivals. There is a central or federal government but its powers are circumscribed.

In this, Belgium is very apt as a symbol of Europe or the EU. The EU too is not a real state but an amalgam of different states in an imperfect union.

By attacking Belgium, the assailants attacked Europe at its weakest point.

Let us get to the specifics. Tracking the travel of terrorists has shown the ineffectiveness of the Schengen pact. The terrorists could, and did, travel across borders with no hassle at all. The one who had taken part in the Paris attack was stopped at the frontier between France and Belgium but then allowed to continue.

The Schengen agreement is already under fire because of that other cause – the migrant flow as a result of the conflict in Syria (and Angela Merkel inviting them in). It is already heavily circumscribed: Hungary has closed its border frontiers, as did Austria, and other countries are busy tearing up the Schengen agreement.

In the minds of many, the removal of borders had been one signal achievement of the EU, along with the euro. If borders are brought back, Europe will be seen as having failed in one signal area.

It is now getting clearer and clearer that the EU was set up on a wish and a prayer, but the initial momentum has now slowed down and the way it was set up and has managed its business so far may not be enough to ensure its survival.

Europe is now at risk of turning into a caricature of itself. It has been shown that on the various challenges it faces – beginning from the Balkan war in the 1990s to the battle against terrorism today, it is difficult to get the various states to agree on a single plan of action and implement it.

We are seeing this lack of cohesion in Europe as it tackles the unprecedented flow of migrants.

This incoherence in response, rather than the migrant flow in itself, is bringing to the fore what used to be the fringe in European politics – such as Germany’s AfD, France’s Marine Le Pen, Italy’s Cinque Stelle, Spain’s Podemos, etc. They have now become the second or third party in their respective countries. We saw the effect of a similar party, Syriza, when it came to power. (Greece is now facing not just the euro problem but even more the migrant problem.)

And the Brussels bombs lead directly to Britain which has its in/out referendum in June. Why do so many people in Britain want to leave the EU? Because, in their own words, they want to regain control of their borders. (Whether they will be able to do that or not is another question).

The bombs in Brussels, in other words, have hit Belgium in a very vulnerable spot and, through Belgium, the entire EU.