As the EU looks to draw together actions to fight terrorism, MEPs and experts give their views on five of the key debates.

Panorama of the combat against terrorism

The goal of IS  and of those terrorist networks

We have to suffocate Daesh  with military strikes

but also by cutting  their source of financing.

The idea that the problem  has been exported from Syria

It's also an ideological fight. A political fight.

A general feeling that there was  a need for a European approach.

And prevent them from getting new fighters.

The phenomenon of jihadists from, say,  Syria still involves mainly young people.

The question is,  what are we going to do with them?

When it gets to the courts, it's often late.  It's often then extremely complicated.

You get into de-radicalisation programmes  and so on,

but for me the intervention  needs to happen before.

'Making Europe safer'  is our motto within Europol.

But it's true, we cannot solve the problem of  the feeding ground of terrorism.

What we can do is make it visible.  We can act on things.

We can try to prevent things. But solutions  must be found at the political level.

What our governments have not done is  to invest in the prevention of radicalisation.

In the Parliament, we are attempting to  launch a European project

because it's a very important point  in the agenda of preventing terrorism.

It is true that Member States  didn't share information enough.

data from countries from which  the persons are entering the EU

and criminal data bases  has had a huge impact,

for example in the Paris attacks, as all the  Belgian suicide bombers had been flagged.

I am very confident that Europol will develop  into the best platform for exchanging data.

We're giving Europol more capabilities  and encouragement

between the different national  police and law enforcement agencies

There are different databases  on the European level,

for fingerprinting,  for the Schengen Information System,

but not all of them are properly linked  and Europol does not have access to all.

And that's what we're trying, together  with the Presidency, to put forward,

and to make it clear that there is a need for  stronger interaction between the databases.

We need to reduce the physical Caliphate  to a minimum

but at the same time  reduce the virtual Caliphate.

When somebody publishes propaganda  on the internet

they can reach hundreds of thousands  of people with just one click,

From our position,  we look into messages and content

Violent content is banned not by legal  authorities but the companies themselves.

What we are doing is making referrals,  saying to Facebook and Twitter,

'there is a conflict with your own rules  with regard to publishing of violent content

or hate preaching  on such and such a website,

please have a look and decide yourselves.'  That's what we are doing.

The PNR will be a very useful instrument,  it has proved to be so already

on the side of the security services  and police to get access to PNR data.

It adds to completing the full intelligence  picture we need to best protect citizens.

It's not a panacea but it is a tool  that may be very useful in certain cases.

We are well aware that once again  a balance must be reached,

at political level the various decisions  must be made.

But in the Paris attacks, for example,  one person had been arrested

in a state outside the EU and it took 3 days  to determine where he had left from.

The challenge of terrorism is a huge one.

The challenge isn't a small unit  with a few terrorists,

this is a huge network operating worldwide.

There are multiple solutions, requiring a  multi-disciplinary or 'holistic' approach.

We are improving the tools, not only  regarding the legal definition of terrorism

which is one item in the draft Directive,  but also systematic checks on EU citizens

something on firearms,  which is also important,

and on the transformation of Frontex  into a Border and Coast Guard system