Exchange of views with Gilles de KERCHOVE, EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, at the LIBE EP Committee in Brussels. Statements by Gilles DE KERCHOVE, EU anti-terrorism Coordinator, Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Birgit SIPPEL (S&amp;D, DE), Sophia IN'T VELD (ALDE, NL) and Judith SARGENTINI (Greens/EFA, NL)

Brussels

exchange of views

Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

fight against terrorism (T)

SIPPEL, Birgit (S&D, DE)

SARGENTINI, Judith (Greens/EFA, NL)

IN 'T VELD, Sophia (Renew, NL)

HOHLMEIER, Monika (EPP, DE)

DE KERCHOVE, Gilles (BE)

Exchange of views with Gilles de KERCHOVE, EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator:  aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris (with Council and Commission) - implementation of the EU Counter-Terrorism Strategy

SOUNDBITE (English), Gilles DE KERCHOVE, EU anti-terrorism Coordinator, The recent events not only in Paris but also in Ankara, in the Sinai, in Beirut, Tunis&hellip; suggest that there is maybe a change in the strategy of DAESH, so far, more concentrated on building the &lsquo;caliphate&rsquo; and no targeting the members of the coalition. Is this a sign of weakness? I believe so. DAESH has always tried to show victory, that was the way to attract new fighters, to get more money and in this case the pressure of the coalition strikes; we all agree that it&rsquo;s not enough but it has an impact in Rakka and around Rakka, maybe forcing them to seek successes abroad.

SOUNDBITE (English), Gilles DE KERCHOVE, EU anti-terrorism Coordinator, On digital evidence: it&rsquo;s nice to say that you will send all the detainees to jail, if you don&rsquo;t have the relevant evidence, it&rsquo;s doomed to fail: you will not secure a conviction. In a rule of law framework we have to have solid evidence. This is difficult because we are not present in Syria, we are not working with al-Assad regime and often the only possible evidence are based on collection, interception of e-mails, something we can get.. and this is not easy because most of the digital evidence are stored in clouds in the US and we have to speed up the process and not wait for 8 months for getting the evidence in the best case.

SOUNDBITE (English), Gilles DE KERCHOVE, EU anti-terrorism Coordinator, We need to set up robust rehabilitation programmes and we are not so advanced in this field. We have to find alternatives to jail and alternatives to criminal procedure for those who have no real blood on their hands and a genuine desire to get back to normal life.

SOUNDBITE (German), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Asking why there is no exchange of information among member states data bases; there is always a claim that data protection is responsible for non-exchanging, is that the real reason? We want to know what are the real problems at stake, so that we can tackle them and get Eurodac in member states, Frontex and Europol to exchange information.

SOUNDBITE (English), Birgit SIPPEL (S&amp;D, DE), I am wondering, seeing the terrorist attacks in Europe, why it seems to be that easy to buy all kind of weapons inside Europe. So first they are coming into Europe; you can buy them at stations, terrorists know the places. In January I was informed: &lsquo;didn&rsquo;t you know that you can buy weapons at that or that station?&rsquo; And I said: &lsquo;No, I didn&rsquo;t know!&rsquo; But obviously police also didn&rsquo;t know because otherwise, hopefully they would have checked. So we do have a problem there.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN&apos;T VELD (ALDE, NL), On PNR: One of our key demands here is mandatory information sharing. We are not talking about all the information, we are not even talking about all the PNR data: we are talking about the results of analysis of PNR data. That&rsquo;s fairly well defined I would say. If we are asked to sign up to an EU PNR directive then the least citizens can expect is that that information is being shared between member states.

SOUNDBITE (English), Judith SARGENTINI (Greens/EFA, NL), I have not heard you talk about what to do when parents knock on doors and say: &lsquo;I feel my child is losing it, I think my child is going leave for Syria&rsquo;. We are talking about influx and you can say you are not trying to mix it with migration but in the meantime you do. I would like to talk about out-flux: how do we make sure that our young boys and girls are not getting extremists? Are not moving into extremist areas and are not leaving to do harm elsewhere?