:00:00. > :00:10.Now on BBC News, it's time for Hardtalk.
:00:11. > :00:17.Welcome to HARDtalk. I am Stephen Sackur. So-called Islamic State has
:00:18. > :00:22.the intent and the capacity to mount major terrorist attacks in the heart
:00:23. > :00:26.of Europe. Does Europe have the right tools to effectively counter
:00:27. > :00:32.that challenge? My guest today is Rob Wainwright, the head of Europol.
:00:33. > :00:37.It is the EU's joint policing agency tasked with enhancing Europe's
:00:38. > :00:43.response to major cross-border security and criminal threats. With
:00:44. > :00:45.the EU's record on external border security and intelligence sharing
:00:46. > :01:15.patchy at best, is Europol just a sticking plaster on a gaping wound?
:01:16. > :01:23.Rob Wainwright, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. Can we start with some
:01:24. > :01:26.definitions when I use the word Europol, it sounds a little bit like
:01:27. > :01:30.a European police force but of course that is not what you are.
:01:31. > :01:35.Then you give me a quick definition of what Europol is supposed to do?
:01:36. > :01:38.No formal police powers. What we do is support national authorities to
:01:39. > :01:43.fight crime and terrorism. We provide access to a unique platform,
:01:44. > :01:48.connecting 600 agencies through the intelligence gateway. We provide
:01:49. > :01:51.intelligence notifications daily and weekend award and weekend award made
:01:52. > :01:55.30,000 operations a year. Therefore, we can help the authorities to fight
:01:56. > :02:04.the most dangerous terrorist gangs in Europe. And intelligence gateway,
:02:05. > :02:08.you say. But it depends on how much intelligence states are allowing
:02:09. > :02:11.through that gateway into your computers and your officers. How
:02:12. > :02:17.much are they letting through? That is the challenge we face over the
:02:18. > :02:20.20- 25 year history, building the trust of what is a conservative
:02:21. > :02:24.policing community. I would say in fields like cyber crime we are
:02:25. > :02:28.pretty much getting access to everything and we are involved in
:02:29. > :02:32.all of the major cases across Europe right now. Terrorism is taking
:02:33. > :02:35.longer because it is much more sensitive. We have an improved
:02:36. > :02:38.record over the last few years but it's not good enough. There is a
:02:39. > :02:47.trust problem, isn't there? There is a familiarity problem. We have
:02:48. > :02:50.tripled the information we are dealing with. On terrorism we are
:02:51. > :02:56.dealing with sensitive national cases touching on the most sensitive
:02:57. > :02:59.part of national security. And, whereas we are providing support for
:03:00. > :03:04.example in the aftermath of the dreadful attacks in Paris, it is not
:03:05. > :03:08.quite yet across-the-board. Know, and partly because agencies like MI5
:03:09. > :03:12.in the UK, which you were once a senior member of, are not entirely
:03:13. > :03:16.happy with the notion of giving their crown jewels of intelligence
:03:17. > :03:19.to other European nations -- No. Because frankly, we know that the
:03:20. > :03:25.closest intelligence relationship the UK has is with the other English
:03:26. > :03:27.speaking nations of the world, the United States, Australia, New
:03:28. > :03:33.Zealand and Canada are. There is a real problem. There is an important
:03:34. > :03:38.way in which the way they deal with this. I would not want to get in the
:03:39. > :03:41.way of that. The same for European agencies. Critically, we connect
:03:42. > :03:45.that exclusive world with the mainstream police world. What we saw
:03:46. > :03:51.from the Paris attacks, for example, suspect had criminal backgrounds. It
:03:52. > :03:56.raises the importance of making sure, therefore, that in the
:03:57. > :04:00.totality of these efforts, we can get the best out of all databases
:04:01. > :04:05.not just in the intelligence world. I am glad you raised Paris. After
:04:06. > :04:09.the horrible atrocities, there was an awful lot of scrutiny over what
:04:10. > :04:13.agencies across Europe had known and what they had shared and done. It
:04:14. > :04:18.turned out that several of the key players in the plot, and the attacks
:04:19. > :04:23.come at were known to different police forces. The French, the
:04:24. > :04:27.Belgian, the Dutch forces. They had done different suspicious things in
:04:28. > :04:30.those different jurisdictions and no one had shared all this information
:04:31. > :04:35.and put it into one pot. Have things changed? Since Paris we've seen
:04:36. > :04:39.significant increases in sharing through Europol which has led
:04:40. > :04:43.directly to ministers deciding to establish for the first time a
:04:44. > :04:48.dedicated counterterrorism centre at Europol, so things are definitely
:04:49. > :04:52.changing. What Paris showed is it was not good enough and there was a
:04:53. > :04:57.fragmented picture of the suspects which led to only a partial exchange
:04:58. > :05:00.of information between authorities. We have huge challenges ahead of us
:05:01. > :05:05.in the face of what is certainly the most serious terrorist threat we've
:05:06. > :05:09.faced in at least a decade. It sounds grand when you say we've
:05:10. > :05:14.learned a lot since November, and we have set up a counterterrorist
:05:15. > :05:17.centre. Back to basics. You don't have any independent power of
:05:18. > :05:22.investigation. You can't launch your own investigations. You don't have
:05:23. > :05:26.power of arrest. When we talk about policing, you can't really do any
:05:27. > :05:31.policing. We don't have formal police powers but what we provide is
:05:32. > :05:35.intelligent everyday that is connecting investigations between
:05:36. > :05:38.different countries. Providing intelligence connections that are
:05:39. > :05:45.not known to those investigators and that is the nature of fighting this
:05:46. > :05:49.global threat. You are not providing it at receiving it. Maybe you are
:05:50. > :05:53.handing it on but it is coming from somewhere else because you are not
:05:54. > :05:58.launching your own investigations. We have over 100 and at the centre
:05:59. > :06:02.of this massive intelligence unit -- 100 analysts. They are uniquely
:06:03. > :06:05.identifying connections between countries and they are the ones
:06:06. > :06:10.adding value and providing investigative leads to the
:06:11. > :06:16.authorities. Back to Paris. One thing we learnt is the alleged
:06:17. > :06:21.mastermind, who is now dead, of the operation, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who
:06:22. > :06:25.died in a police raid after the terrible attacks in Paris, it turns
:06:26. > :06:30.out he had crossed Europe several times. He had been to Syria. He had
:06:31. > :06:32.come back. He had almost mocked the inability of the European police
:06:33. > :06:40.forces to stop him even though he was known to them. Now, after that
:06:41. > :06:44.the French Foreign Minister said, if he has been able to travel from
:06:45. > :06:48.Syria to front it means that there are failings, fundamental failings,
:06:49. > :06:51.in the whole European system. Can you sit here with me today and say
:06:52. > :06:55.that those failings have been addressed and rectified? They are
:06:56. > :06:59.being addressed right now and what I can say is the sad reality of what
:07:00. > :07:02.we saw in Paris was this was one that got through. Of the many plots
:07:03. > :07:06.Europe has faced in the last couple of years, sadly this one got
:07:07. > :07:13.through. The threat is so dynamic, operating across a dispersed
:07:14. > :07:17.community of 5000 people, fragmented information known about them, moving
:07:18. > :07:21.freely across borders, and it is difficult to monitor all of them 24
:07:22. > :07:25.hours a day. It means we cannot actually reduce the threat to zero.
:07:26. > :07:28.And that is the nature of the threat we are facing. Of course we have to
:07:29. > :07:34.learn lessons from Paris and double the efforts but that is the reality
:07:35. > :07:40.of what we face. Has there been sit thickened terror attacks thwarted
:07:41. > :07:45.since November 2015? I can't talk about that because ongoing
:07:46. > :07:49.investigations we are party to but I can see many plots have been
:07:50. > :07:52.successfully... What Europeans and indeed the world want to know is
:07:53. > :07:59.that things might have changed, maybe the balance between the
:08:00. > :08:01.terrorist capabilities and the policing counter response. The
:08:02. > :08:07.balance might have changed somewhat as lessons have been learned. It
:08:08. > :08:12.would be useful to know of specific things that have been achieved and
:08:13. > :08:17.plots thwarted since November 2015. A considerable amount of ongoing
:08:18. > :08:21.investigations in many countries are going on and achievements are being
:08:22. > :08:26.made to identify and disrupt. Of course I can't go into operational
:08:27. > :08:29.details. But what Paris also showed was that the threat from ISIS has
:08:30. > :08:36.moved up a gear. Deliberate intention by them to carry out
:08:37. > :08:40.international network attacks on the west in a way we've not seen in
:08:41. > :08:45.Europe before. These indiscriminate public shootings, suicide belts.
:08:46. > :08:47.We've not seen that before. It was a deliberate challenge laid down by
:08:48. > :08:52.so-called Islamic State which we are determined to meet. Interesting you
:08:53. > :08:58.say the terrorist capability has been ratcheted up in a sense. After
:08:59. > :09:00.November some interesting things were said by senior members of the
:09:01. > :09:07.security services in the UK, and observers, Michael Clarke, director
:09:08. > :09:11.general of RUSI. He said security services know their lives have
:09:12. > :09:16.become more difficult. He says the scale of ISIS's activities and the
:09:17. > :09:21.spread of encryption, a new level of encryption that tech companies help
:09:22. > :09:26.hold on to provide after Snowden's revelations, he says all of it makes
:09:27. > :09:29.it true that there has been a golden age for the investigators for the
:09:30. > :09:33.counter-terror guys and that golden age has come to an end. Would you
:09:34. > :09:39.agree? I think the golden age is changing. We face very many serious
:09:40. > :09:45.threats. We can only remember how we felt after 9/11. We've responded
:09:46. > :09:48.each time strongly and effectively defeated those forms of terrorism
:09:49. > :09:52.and I think we will do it again. You talk about the Internet. It has
:09:53. > :09:58.become a defining feature of the way in which IS prop against the threat.
:09:59. > :10:00.The way it is using technology in particular the Internet to
:10:01. > :10:05.radicalise individuals -- propagates. It is a much more
:10:06. > :10:11.advanced propaganda tool that we have seen before. And behind it,
:10:12. > :10:16.yes, encryption plays a part. So we have to change the response. You are
:10:17. > :10:22.one of the senior voices in that counterterror community. Have you
:10:23. > :10:26.talked to the community and said, look, the degree of encryption you
:10:27. > :10:28.are putting on your devices and communications tools, makes it
:10:29. > :10:34.almost impossible for us to safeguard our communities? That is a
:10:35. > :10:38.consistent message coming out of the community. The way in which these
:10:39. > :10:41.tools, certainly on the Dark Net, are exploited by serious criminals
:10:42. > :10:46.and terrorists has made it harder for counterterrorism without doubt.
:10:47. > :10:49.What the response the executives, the guys run the sites and
:10:50. > :10:55.companies, give to you, what do they say to you? We've seen that in
:10:56. > :10:59.public in the way in which the chiefs of Apple have made their
:11:00. > :11:02.position. It has not been a very constructive debate between those
:11:03. > :11:06.advocates of security on one side and those for almost absolute
:11:07. > :11:13.privacy on the other. It has been a zero-sum game. They don't trust you.
:11:14. > :11:19.Post Snowden they see the big state, on a pan-European basis, the
:11:20. > :11:22.big state wants to monitor everyone's communications all the
:11:23. > :11:29.time. Snowden change a lot of things in that sense and we have to rebuild
:11:30. > :11:33.that trust. There are shafts of daylight in this sense that what we
:11:34. > :11:38.are doing is helping monitor the way IS is operating online. We are
:11:39. > :11:41.working with social media platforms to identify the most interest
:11:42. > :11:46.accounts and remove them as quickly as possible. I can tell you in that
:11:47. > :11:48.area, based entirely on voluntary co-operation, no enforcement powers
:11:49. > :11:52.from Europol, all of the major social media platforms are working
:11:53. > :11:57.very well with us. What about going after the money trail? You've made
:11:58. > :12:03.it a key commitment after terrorist financing in Europe. So how are you
:12:04. > :12:08.doing it? The reality is across the law enforcement community we have
:12:09. > :12:14.built a very elaborate anti- money laundering regime. Only 20% of
:12:15. > :12:18.suspicious transactions reported to the communities in Europe are
:12:19. > :12:24.followed up on. A lot of work has to be done. At Europol we have specific
:12:25. > :12:28.programmes, working with America to provide unique needs on terrorist
:12:29. > :12:31.financing. Over 1500 given to French investigations are loan following
:12:32. > :12:34.the Paris attack. There are significant resources. We have to
:12:35. > :12:43.deliver them in a concerted way. Where are the weak link s right now?
:12:44. > :12:47.Let me talk about Belgium. They say they have 400 citizens right now in
:12:48. > :12:51.Syria, or believed about to go there. There are another four or 500
:12:52. > :12:56.apparently hoovered Belgian say have been radicalise to an extremely
:12:57. > :13:01.dangerous level. -- who the Belgians say. The number they have
:13:02. > :13:05.to keep tabs on these people is far fewer than the number of threats
:13:06. > :13:10.they have identified. That would suggest to me that in a country like
:13:11. > :13:13.Belgium the resources thrown at this problem are completely inadequate.
:13:14. > :13:18.It is for them to decide for themselves. They are not working
:13:19. > :13:22.alone. They are working in that case along with French investigators. We
:13:23. > :13:27.know that they not. With respect, November Paris showed that. From
:13:28. > :13:32.what I have seen, there has been considerable bilateral cooperation.
:13:33. > :13:36.They are also making use of the supercharged European platforms we
:13:37. > :13:38.are developing. I know that you want to talk strong game but
:13:39. > :13:47.supercharged? What is your annual budget? Only 100 million. Tiny! You
:13:48. > :13:51.should ask what is the size of the community we are networking with,
:13:52. > :13:56.over 600 agencies, managing thousands of sensitive intelligence
:13:57. > :14:00.exchanges daily. (CROSSTALK). You only have a couple of 100 staff, 100
:14:01. > :14:05.million budget. You are going to be overrun. We are not overrun. We are
:14:06. > :14:08.on top of the game and we are supporting more than 30,000
:14:09. > :14:12.investigations per year in countering crime and terrorism. This
:14:13. > :14:16.is in the face of a changing threat. I understand that. It is
:14:17. > :14:22.something that we are determined to play an important part in meeting.
:14:23. > :14:26.Some politicians have looked at your size. They would say the mismatch
:14:27. > :14:31.between your ambition and the scale of the task you face and your
:14:32. > :14:35.resources and say it is time to talk about something different, not
:14:36. > :14:41.Europol as a token institution, but let's create a pan-European
:14:42. > :14:48.equivalent of the FBI and CIA, a truly pan-European security agency.
:14:49. > :14:56.Realistic? No. When you talk about the Brexit, you can imagine what the
:14:57. > :15:00.British and other publics around Europe would think about having a
:15:01. > :15:04.federal CIA or FBI, the time might come, especially with the threat and
:15:05. > :15:09.the way it is developing, but at the moment it's not realistic and it's a
:15:10. > :15:16.difficult environment in Europe compared to America. When he former
:15:17. > :15:21.Belgian p.m. And federalist said terrorism is borderless and we have
:15:22. > :15:24.to make terrorism gathering borderless, he is talking
:15:25. > :15:27.fantastical rubbish? He is expressing the frustration in the
:15:28. > :15:31.political class in Europe. The attacks in Paris showed the level of
:15:32. > :15:34.corporation isn't good enough and that lays down the challenge in the
:15:35. > :15:40.police community and intelligence community to up their game, improve
:15:41. > :15:45.their intelligence gathering corporation. Communication is always
:15:46. > :15:48.going to get solid binational tensions, jealousies, mistrusts.
:15:49. > :15:52.We've talked about them in this interview. Do you as a senior
:15:53. > :15:56.policing and intelligence officer wish that Europe could get the point
:15:57. > :16:01.of borderless intelligence gathering? I think we can do that
:16:02. > :16:05.without creating an FBI, because we're providing the framework in is
:16:06. > :16:09.to Jewish and slight Europol and others to allow for pretty seamless
:16:10. > :16:13.intelligence Corporation -- institutions like. That's not quite
:16:14. > :16:19.happening on terrorism at the moment. For good reason I'm sure,
:16:20. > :16:23.you try to put a very positive spin on what's happening in Europe at the
:16:24. > :16:26.moment. Isn't the fundamental problem and challenge the chaos
:16:27. > :16:30.created by the migration crisis? That is undermining all the good
:16:31. > :16:37.work you're trying to do. 2015 was a pretty sizeable year for Europe,
:16:38. > :16:39.you're right, the mike in crisis and the worst terrorist threat in ten
:16:40. > :16:46.years and the conflation of those two things... -- migrant crisis. You
:16:47. > :16:50.think there is a conflation, the terrorists are aware of the chaos
:16:51. > :16:54.caused by the migration crisis and they are exploiting it? Both of them
:16:55. > :16:58.have security dimensions, the extent to which they are emanating from the
:16:59. > :17:02.same source is open to debate. I don't think there is a system, I
:17:03. > :17:06.don't think Islamic State are systematically using the migration
:17:07. > :17:12.route everyday. To get people to Europe? On we know one or two of the
:17:13. > :17:16.Paris attackers have used the migration route into Europe. And we
:17:17. > :17:19.have seen the way in which the underground economy produces fake
:17:20. > :17:24.documents, including Syrian passports, feeding into the criminal
:17:25. > :17:28.underworld and terrorist groups as well. It might be a growing problem
:17:29. > :17:35.but it's not yet a significant one, much less than not .01% of migrants
:17:36. > :17:39.are related in anyway to terrorism. -- zero .01%. You reacted to Paris
:17:40. > :17:45.by creating a new counterterrorism centre. I know you have a special
:17:46. > :17:48.migration unit as well to look at people smuggling and people
:17:49. > :17:54.trafficking. How many people are in that unit? We only have 20 or 30 in
:17:55. > :17:58.that Europe as well -- unit as well. It comes down to the resource
:17:59. > :18:03.issue, you have such a big task in front of you and you have so few
:18:04. > :18:06.resources, 20 or 30 people? There are hundreds of thousands of
:18:07. > :18:12.migrants coming into Europe this year, millions, and you have 20 or
:18:13. > :18:16.30 people? You have to count the community they are servicing, the
:18:17. > :18:20.European police network of trafficking teams for example is
:18:21. > :18:23.much larger of course, and they are feeding into our communication
:18:24. > :18:29.exchange -- information exchange everyday. From that we have
:18:30. > :18:33.discovered 40,000 people smugglers and 18,000 traffickers. We are
:18:34. > :18:37.managing to support cases in the hundreds of thousands despite that
:18:38. > :18:42.size. You misunderstand the point of the service that Europol is
:18:43. > :18:47.providing, it's working rather well actually. I think I'm trying to get
:18:48. > :18:51.their. It's more about crunching the data and feeding analysis back to
:18:52. > :18:56.member state governments, is that sort of what you're doing? To use a
:18:57. > :19:01.business analogy, we are part of the platform economy. That's jargon, I
:19:02. > :19:11.don't know what that is, means? Uber is the largest taxi company but it
:19:12. > :19:15.doesn't have a vehicle, air B doesn't have any properties. We can
:19:16. > :19:20.still provide a relevant part of our business sector, which is policing.
:19:21. > :19:24.You have to to be effective work with governments who are delivering
:19:25. > :19:28.on the ground in terms of policing and security. On the migration
:19:29. > :19:32.question, let's talk about Greece, it's patenting obvious that Greece
:19:33. > :19:37.is utterly failing to secure its part of the European frontier. That
:19:38. > :19:41.is a huge problem for people like you, is it not? Greece got
:19:42. > :19:47.completely overwhelmed by the scale of the threat that happened and
:19:48. > :19:52.10,000 migrants entering the Greek islands everyday. It was extremely
:19:53. > :19:58.challenging for them. You're right, extremely challenging, is the only
:19:59. > :20:03.right security response to say, for now at least, Greece has to be
:20:04. > :20:07.exiled from Schengen. To have freedom of movement start at
:20:08. > :20:12.Greece's external border is jeopardising the security of all of
:20:13. > :20:15.Europe. It has since changed, it has since been 45 by hundreds of border
:20:16. > :20:20.guard officials that have come from other countries to support Greece.
:20:21. > :20:25.We are all helping to upgrade the technical architecture and helping
:20:26. > :20:28.them deal with that. Greece's defences are certainly
:20:29. > :20:33.strengthening. It's important Europe sticks together to protect ourselves
:20:34. > :20:36.commonly from these security threats. When the Hungarians talk
:20:37. > :20:41.about at least for now suspending Greece from Schengen, with your
:20:42. > :20:47.influence and authority you would say no way? I have no influence over
:20:48. > :20:51.such a political decision. The head of Europol carries a voice these
:20:52. > :20:57.days. I am advising ministers that we need to make sure we can do the
:20:58. > :21:00.things that can already work better, information exchange,
:21:01. > :21:04.operation co-ordination to clamp down on the people smuggling gangs
:21:05. > :21:10.that are making this situation much worse. They flooded into this market
:21:11. > :21:14.in an entrepreneurial way in 2015 providing legal services... And
:21:15. > :21:18.trafficking children? Yes, some of them trafficking children, and we
:21:19. > :21:21.are concerned about the number of unaccompanied minors that have
:21:22. > :21:25.arrived in Europe over the last year that have frankly gone missing in
:21:26. > :21:30.the system and are vulnerable in some cases. A shocking failure that
:21:31. > :21:35.they have reached the" Safety" of the European Union and then they
:21:36. > :21:40.have gone missing in their thousands. Yes, but there is an
:21:41. > :21:44.innocent explanation to most of it. We know some children have escaped,
:21:45. > :21:48.if I can call it that, from children's homes and have gone to
:21:49. > :21:51.meet up with a family friend somewhere perhaps. There aren't
:21:52. > :21:56.necessarily thousands of children currently being exploited, but they
:21:57. > :22:01.are definitely vulnerable to that. We have seen an increasing rate of
:22:02. > :22:06.exportation over the recent years, though. I need to ask you about one
:22:07. > :22:11.more issue, you're a Welshman and you're a Brit, you must be looking
:22:12. > :22:16.at the debate in the UK, the Brexit, whether to stay or leave the
:22:17. > :22:20.European Union. If the UK votes to leave the European Union, with the
:22:21. > :22:26.UK have to leave the Europol framework? Yes. You would have to
:22:27. > :22:31.quit? I think so, yes. In that sense, yes. This is obviously not
:22:32. > :22:36.about me. It's not about you but it's about Europol. David Cameron,
:22:37. > :22:39.one of his developing arguments seems to be, if we leave the
:22:40. > :22:43.European Union then it's a massive security problem for the UK not
:22:44. > :22:47.least because all of these people currently being controlled by
:22:48. > :22:50.British and French immigration and the control officers on the French
:22:51. > :23:00.side of the channel will be allowed to move across the Channel and the
:23:01. > :23:03.process and therefore camped out in England and not in France any more.
:23:04. > :23:05.Is that you're reading? We have been talking about in this interview the
:23:06. > :23:07.extent to which terrorist and other threats have become international.
:23:08. > :23:12.The real security threats that we face today travel to the UK, arrived
:23:13. > :23:19.here, crossing through Europe in particular. Whether the UK is in or
:23:20. > :23:22.out of the EU, we still have to have significant, even more advanced
:23:23. > :23:27.Corporation with European neighbours. It could be harder if we
:23:28. > :23:31.leave the EU? You can do that outside the EU but it will be more
:23:32. > :23:34.costly and certainly much less effective. The UK would be accenting
:23:35. > :23:41.itself from having access to the kind of well-developed arrangements
:23:42. > :23:44.that have existed now and over the last 40 years. In this debate there
:23:45. > :23:49.are many sides to the argument, I understand that, but I don't see any
:23:50. > :23:54.security benefits for the UK leaving the EU. You're saying something the
:23:55. > :24:02.potentially politically explosive. You're saying Britain is going to
:24:03. > :24:06.suffer severe detrimental effects in security terms if it leaves the EU?
:24:07. > :24:09.I didn't say that, I said it would make Britain's job harder to fight
:24:10. > :24:13.crime and terrorism because it wouldn't have the same access to
:24:14. > :24:17.very well-developed European corporation mechanisms that are in
:24:18. > :24:21.place today. Rob Wainwright, thank you very much for being on
:24:22. > :24:22.HARDtalk. Thank you. Thank you very much.