Intelligence services need politics

The possibility of setting up an integrated European intelligence network is out of the question without a will to install a single political subject to which these services would answer. In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris last November, the discovery that a network of interconnected jihadist cells has been branching out in many European countries led to a lively debate on the need to develop a joint intelligence network.

This issue regularly makes headline news after terrorist attacks in Europe. The threat has become all the more menacing, now that militant extremists have begun to hit socalled soft targets, crowded and unprotected public spaces where large numbers of people can be killed before security forces can effectively intervene.

The attacks in Brussels have also revealed that strategic targets such as undergrounds and airports cannot be protected from enemies using homemade, undetectable explosives who are prepared to blow themselves up in areas such as check-in queues that can be accessed without security screening.

Shortly before the events in Paris, a report by the French internal security agency had warned of largescale attacks by terrorist cells located in other European countries. They suspected a new cross-border technique could be adopted by jihadi groups intending to attack France, exploiting the holes and delays in information sharing among the various European intelligence services. 

If you want to read it all, purchase the entire issue in pdf for just three euro