Daily Times

It is clear that intelligence and law enforcement in some European Union (EU) member states is characterised by variety, being the product of their specific history and culture. The majority of states still live in the cold war era while awareness about national security, intelligence and law enforcement is limited in these states. Literacy rate in some Eastern European states is in shambles. In Central and Western Europe, some states introduced major reforms in the field of law enforcement and intelligence, but the way their intelligence agencies are operating is not professional due to their consecutive failure to tackle national security threats.

These reforms have had mixed results; sometimes states adopted a democratic model, and at times, it looked as though hardly anything had changed. Every state adopted its own culture of national security mechanism, which prevented them to adopt a common security approach. Now the case of intelligence sharing has become complicated as all member states face deep political and military crises. From intelligence reforms to information sharing, everything is being illustrated in forums and media debates to find out a viable solution to mutual differences and priorities of member states.

The most important concerns relate to the regime change in Ukraine, the emergence of the Islamic State and a new wave of terrorism in Europe. The crisis continues to have significant repercussions for the member states. While terror elements started infiltrating from one state to another state, the EU member states individually decided to manage their own borders to tackle the crisis of migration and free movement of people. This unexpected infiltration forced them to introduce security sector reforms and apply new means of intelligence surveillance to identify terror suspects. In 2015, the migration crisis demonstrated certain vulnerabilities at borders of the EU member states, and it has become clear that the management of borders was weak. The current crisis led to difficulties in majority of the states. In many aspects, the ongoing influx of unwanted people and migrants is leading to the Europeanisation of border management. The Brussels, Nice and Paris attacks revealed the shortcomings of intelligence cooperation of the EU member states.

The blame game worsened as heads of governments started criticising each other for the failure of their security agencies to cooperate on law enforcement level. After the above-mentioned security crisis and blame game, the EU is now living in a turbulent time, and operating in a permanent crisis mood, confronting one turmoil after another. These challenges are too irksome in nature and sensitivity because for too long the EU turned a blind eye to the suffering of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria and Iraq. At present, the EU has no coherent policy to tackle this crisis. Mass migration now poses the gravest threat to the stability of the project.

The uncontrollable spy agencies in some EU member states generated an important debate in print media that agencies of some states were operating in diverse directions. In Germany, this question is often raised by experts that legal restrictions must be imposed on secret services of the BND. A parliamentary enquiry revealed that the BND spied on nearly 3,500 individuals of the allied countries. The new legislation in Germany banned the BND from spying on foreign governments.

To bring intelligence under democratic control, several EU member states recently adopted new laws. In January 2015, in Sweden, security service (SAPO) was reorganised to address the complaints of citizens. Austria, Denmark, Finland, the Republic of Ireland and Hungary are spying on their own citizens according to their designed surveillance systems, but their electronic approach to national security and stability is not perceived as a professional approach on a community level. The case of the Netherlands is not so different where various forums discuss the menace of radicalisation and extremism in different perspectives. But the Netherlands’ intelligence and security system is much better compared to some other EU member states. The country maintains professional intelligence and law enforcement infrastructure that share information on EU level, and helps member states in tackling the scourge of radicalisation. Transitional threats facing the country can be tackled only at law enforcement level. The Netherlands actively stresses the importance of professional approach in the international arena. Like Britain, the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service defeated extremism, radicalisation and international terrorism by a professional mechanism, and shared its valuable information with other EU member states.

In Netherlands, a three-member review committee on the intelligence and security services was formed as an independent body to oversee the performance and operations of intelligence agencies. The country’s intelligence and security service act 2002 stipulates that the conditions under which the right to privacy of communications exists may be restricted. In view of the weak intelligence sharing approach and unprofessional border management mechanism in some EU member states, the UK, Belgium, Netherlands, France and Germany introduced security sector reforms to bring intelligence under democratic control.

In Britain, intelligence oversight on parliamentary, legal and several other bodies has produced importance results. The country maintains highly professional intelligence infrastructure, which helps other EU member states in tackling terrorism and radicalisation. Equipped with modern computer software, communications and drone technology, the Government Communication Headquarters, MI6 and MI5 are the strongest intelligence agencies in Europe and Asia. Therefore, UK’s involvement in EU’s security is pivotal. The MI6 and MI5 have served the nation for more than 100 years.

To make intelligence professional, the oversight system in the country is very strong; it monitors the performance of agencies through various means. Two commissioners — the intelligence services commissioner and the interception of communication commissioner –oversee the use of powers mentioned in the regulations of the investigatory power act. The parliamentary and legal oversight system is also strong; it assesses the activities of all intelligence services across the country.

The EU Intelligence agencies share plenty of information, but unfortunately, this information could not help member states to tackle the persisting crisis of national security. The EU member states need to introduce security sector reforms, and strengthen legal and parliamentary oversight bodies to prevent intelligence failure and corruption within the system.

The writer is the author of Fixing the EU Intel Crisis, and can be reached at zai.musakhan222@gmail.com