Rob Wainwright, Director of Europol HARDtalk

Now on BBC News, it's time for Hardtalk.

Welcome to HARDtalk. I am Stephen Sackur. So-called Islamic State has

the intent and the capacity to mount major terrorist attacks in the heart

of Europe. Does Europe have the right tools to effectively counter

that challenge? My guest today is Rob Wainwright, the head of Europol.

It is the EU's joint policing agency tasked with enhancing Europe's

response to major cross-border security and criminal threats. With

the EU's record on external border security and intelligence sharing

patchy at best, is Europol just a sticking plaster on a gaping wound?

Rob Wainwright, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. Can we start with some

definitions when I use the word Europol, it sounds a little bit like

a European police force but of course that is not what you are.

Then you give me a quick definition of what Europol is supposed to do?

No formal police powers. What we do is support national authorities to

fight crime and terrorism. We provide access to a unique platform,

connecting 600 agencies through the intelligence gateway. We provide

intelligence notifications daily and weekend award and weekend award made

30,000 operations a year. Therefore, we can help the authorities to fight

the most dangerous terrorist gangs in Europe. And intelligence gateway,

you say. But it depends on how much intelligence states are allowing

through that gateway into your computers and your officers. How

much are they letting through? That is the challenge we face over the

20- 25 year history, building the trust of what is a conservative

policing community. I would say in fields like cyber crime we are

pretty much getting access to everything and we are involved in

all of the major cases across Europe right now. Terrorism is taking

longer because it is much more sensitive. We have an improved

record over the last few years but it's not good enough. There is a

trust problem, isn't there? There is a familiarity problem. We have

tripled the information we are dealing with. On terrorism we are

dealing with sensitive national cases touching on the most sensitive

part of national security. And, whereas we are providing support for

example in the aftermath of the dreadful attacks in Paris, it is not

quite yet across-the-board. Know, and partly because agencies like MI5

in the UK, which you were once a senior member of, are not entirely

happy with the notion of giving their crown jewels of intelligence

to other European nations -- No. Because frankly, we know that the

closest intelligence relationship the UK has is with the other English

speaking nations of the world, the United States, Australia, New

Zealand and Canada are. There is a real problem. There is an important

way in which the way they deal with this. I would not want to get in the

way of that. The same for European agencies. Critically, we connect

that exclusive world with the mainstream police world. What we saw

from the Paris attacks, for example, suspect had criminal backgrounds. It

raises the importance of making sure, therefore, that in the

totality of these efforts, we can get the best out of all databases

not just in the intelligence world. I am glad you raised Paris. After

the horrible atrocities, there was an awful lot of scrutiny over what

agencies across Europe had known and what they had shared and done. It

turned out that several of the key players in the plot, and the attacks

come at were known to different police forces. The French, the

Belgian, the Dutch forces. They had done different suspicious things in

those different jurisdictions and no one had shared all this information

and put it into one pot. Have things changed? Since Paris we've seen

significant increases in sharing through Europol which has led

directly to ministers deciding to establish for the first time a

dedicated counterterrorism centre at Europol, so things are definitely

changing. What Paris showed is it was not good enough and there was a

fragmented picture of the suspects which led to only a partial exchange

of information between authorities. We have huge challenges ahead of us

in the face of what is certainly the most serious terrorist threat we've

faced in at least a decade. It sounds grand when you say we've

learned a lot since November, and we have set up a counterterrorist

centre. Back to basics. You don't have any independent power of

investigation. You can't launch your own investigations. You don't have

power of arrest. When we talk about policing, you can't really do any

policing. We don't have formal police powers but what we provide is

intelligent everyday that is connecting investigations between

different countries. Providing intelligence connections that are

not known to those investigators and that is the nature of fighting this

global threat. You are not providing it at receiving it. Maybe you are

handing it on but it is coming from somewhere else because you are not

launching your own investigations. We have over 100 and at the centre

of this massive intelligence unit -- 100 analysts. They are uniquely

identifying connections between countries and they are the ones

adding value and providing investigative leads to the

authorities. Back to Paris. One thing we learnt is the alleged

mastermind, who is now dead, of the operation, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who

died in a police raid after the terrible attacks in Paris, it turns

out he had crossed Europe several times. He had been to Syria. He had

come back. He had almost mocked the inability of the European police

forces to stop him even though he was known to them. Now, after that

the French Foreign Minister said, if he has been able to travel from

Syria to front it means that there are failings, fundamental failings,

in the whole European system. Can you sit here with me today and say

that those failings have been addressed and rectified? They are

being addressed right now and what I can say is the sad reality of what

we saw in Paris was this was one that got through. Of the many plots

Europe has faced in the last couple of years, sadly this one got

through. The threat is so dynamic, operating across a dispersed

community of 5000 people, fragmented information known about them, moving

freely across borders, and it is difficult to monitor all of them 24

hours a day. It means we cannot actually reduce the threat to zero.

And that is the nature of the threat we are facing. Of course we have to

learn lessons from Paris and double the efforts but that is the reality

of what we face. Has there been sit thickened terror attacks thwarted

since November 2015? I can't talk about that because ongoing

investigations we are party to but I can see many plots have been

successfully... What Europeans and indeed the world want to know is

that things might have changed, maybe the balance between the

terrorist capabilities and the policing counter response. The

balance might have changed somewhat as lessons have been learned. It

would be useful to know of specific things that have been achieved and

plots thwarted since November 2015. A considerable amount of ongoing

investigations in many countries are going on and achievements are being

made to identify and disrupt. Of course I can't go into operational

details. But what Paris also showed was that the threat from ISIS has

moved up a gear. Deliberate intention by them to carry out

international network attacks on the west in a way we've not seen in

Europe before. These indiscriminate public shootings, suicide belts.

We've not seen that before. It was a deliberate challenge laid down by

so-called Islamic State which we are determined to meet. Interesting you

say the terrorist capability has been ratcheted up in a sense. After

November some interesting things were said by senior members of the

security services in the UK, and observers, Michael Clarke, director

general of RUSI. He said security services know their lives have

become more difficult. He says the scale of ISIS's activities and the

spread of encryption, a new level of encryption that tech companies help

hold on to provide after Snowden's revelations, he says all of it makes

it true that there has been a golden age for the investigators for the

counter-terror guys and that golden age has come to an end. Would you

agree? I think the golden age is changing. We face very many serious

threats. We can only remember how we felt after 9/11. We've responded

each time strongly and effectively defeated those forms of terrorism

and I think we will do it again. You talk about the Internet. It has

become a defining feature of the way in which IS prop against the threat.

The way it is using technology in particular the Internet to

radicalise individuals -- propagates. It is a much more

advanced propaganda tool that we have seen before. And behind it,

yes, encryption plays a part. So we have to change the response. You are

one of the senior voices in that counterterror community. Have you

talked to the community and said, look, the degree of encryption you

are putting on your devices and communications tools, makes it

almost impossible for us to safeguard our communities? That is a

consistent message coming out of the community. The way in which these

tools, certainly on the Dark Net, are exploited by serious criminals

and terrorists has made it harder for counterterrorism without doubt.

What the response the executives, the guys run the sites and

companies, give to you, what do they say to you? We've seen that in

public in the way in which the chiefs of Apple have made their

position. It has not been a very constructive debate between those

advocates of security on one side and those for almost absolute

privacy on the other. It has been a zero-sum game. They don't trust you.

Post Snowden they see the big state, on a pan-European basis, the

big state wants to monitor everyone's communications all the

time. Snowden change a lot of things in that sense and we have to rebuild

that trust. There are shafts of daylight in this sense that what we

are doing is helping monitor the way IS is operating online. We are

working with social media platforms to identify the most interest

accounts and remove them as quickly as possible. I can tell you in that

area, based entirely on voluntary co-operation, no enforcement powers

from Europol, all of the major social media platforms are working

very well with us. What about going after the money trail? You've made

it a key commitment after terrorist financing in Europe. So how are you

doing it? The reality is across the law enforcement community we have

built a very elaborate anti- money laundering regime. Only 20% of

suspicious transactions reported to the communities in Europe are

followed up on. A lot of work has to be done. At Europol we have specific

programmes, working with America to provide unique needs on terrorist

financing. Over 1500 given to French investigations are loan following

the Paris attack. There are significant resources. We have to

deliver them in a concerted way. Where are the weak link s right now?

Let me talk about Belgium. They say they have 400 citizens right now in

Syria, or believed about to go there. There are another four or 500

apparently hoovered Belgian say have been radicalise to an extremely

dangerous level. -- who the Belgians say. The number they have

to keep tabs on these people is far fewer than the number of threats

they have identified. That would suggest to me that in a country like

Belgium the resources thrown at this problem are completely inadequate.

It is for them to decide for themselves. They are not working

alone. They are working in that case along with French investigators. We

know that they not. With respect, November Paris showed that. From

what I have seen, there has been considerable bilateral cooperation.

They are also making use of the supercharged European platforms we

are developing. I know that you want to talk strong game but

supercharged? What is your annual budget? Only 100 million. Tiny! You

should ask what is the size of the community we are networking with,

over 600 agencies, managing thousands of sensitive intelligence

exchanges daily. (CROSSTALK). You only have a couple of 100 staff, 100

million budget. You are going to be overrun. We are not overrun. We are

on top of the game and we are supporting more than 30,000

investigations per year in countering crime and terrorism. This

is in the face of a changing threat. I understand that. It is

something that we are determined to play an important part in meeting.

Some politicians have looked at your size. They would say the mismatch

between your ambition and the scale of the task you face and your

resources and say it is time to talk about something different, not

Europol as a token institution, but let's create a pan-European

equivalent of the FBI and CIA, a truly pan-European security agency.

Realistic? No. When you talk about the Brexit, you can imagine what the

British and other publics around Europe would think about having a

federal CIA or FBI, the time might come, especially with the threat and

the way it is developing, but at the moment it's not realistic and it's a

difficult environment in Europe compared to America. When he former

Belgian p.m. And federalist said terrorism is borderless and we have

to make terrorism gathering borderless, he is talking

fantastical rubbish? He is expressing the frustration in the

political class in Europe. The attacks in Paris showed the level of

corporation isn't good enough and that lays down the challenge in the

police community and intelligence community to up their game, improve

their intelligence gathering corporation. Communication is always

going to get solid binational tensions, jealousies, mistrusts.

We've talked about them in this interview. Do you as a senior

policing and intelligence officer wish that Europe could get the point

of borderless intelligence gathering? I think we can do that

without creating an FBI, because we're providing the framework in is

to Jewish and slight Europol and others to allow for pretty seamless

intelligence Corporation -- institutions like. That's not quite

happening on terrorism at the moment. For good reason I'm sure,

you try to put a very positive spin on what's happening in Europe at the

moment. Isn't the fundamental problem and challenge the chaos

created by the migration crisis? That is undermining all the good

work you're trying to do. 2015 was a pretty sizeable year for Europe,

you're right, the mike in crisis and the worst terrorist threat in ten

years and the conflation of those two things... -- migrant crisis. You

think there is a conflation, the terrorists are aware of the chaos

caused by the migration crisis and they are exploiting it? Both of them

have security dimensions, the extent to which they are emanating from the

same source is open to debate. I don't think there is a system, I

don't think Islamic State are systematically using the migration

route everyday. To get people to Europe? On we know one or two of the

Paris attackers have used the migration route into Europe. And we

have seen the way in which the underground economy produces fake

documents, including Syrian passports, feeding into the criminal

underworld and terrorist groups as well. It might be a growing problem

but it's not yet a significant one, much less than not .01% of migrants

are related in anyway to terrorism. -- zero .01%. You reacted to Paris

by creating a new counterterrorism centre. I know you have a special

migration unit as well to look at people smuggling and people

trafficking. How many people are in that unit? We only have 20 or 30 in

that Europe as well -- unit as well. It comes down to the resource

issue, you have such a big task in front of you and you have so few

resources, 20 or 30 people? There are hundreds of thousands of

migrants coming into Europe this year, millions, and you have 20 or

30 people? You have to count the community they are servicing, the

European police network of trafficking teams for example is

much larger of course, and they are feeding into our communication

exchange -- information exchange everyday. From that we have

discovered 40,000 people smugglers and 18,000 traffickers. We are

managing to support cases in the hundreds of thousands despite that

size. You misunderstand the point of the service that Europol is

providing, it's working rather well actually. I think I'm trying to get

their. It's more about crunching the data and feeding analysis back to

member state governments, is that sort of what you're doing? To use a

business analogy, we are part of the platform economy. That's jargon, I

don't know what that is, means? Uber is the largest taxi company but it

doesn't have a vehicle, air B doesn't have any properties. We can

still provide a relevant part of our business sector, which is policing.

You have to to be effective work with governments who are delivering

on the ground in terms of policing and security. On the migration

question, let's talk about Greece, it's patenting obvious that Greece

is utterly failing to secure its part of the European frontier. That

is a huge problem for people like you, is it not? Greece got

completely overwhelmed by the scale of the threat that happened and

10,000 migrants entering the Greek islands everyday. It was extremely

challenging for them. You're right, extremely challenging, is the only

right security response to say, for now at least, Greece has to be

exiled from Schengen. To have freedom of movement start at

Greece's external border is jeopardising the security of all of

Europe. It has since changed, it has since been 45 by hundreds of border

guard officials that have come from other countries to support Greece.

We are all helping to upgrade the technical architecture and helping

them deal with that. Greece's defences are certainly

strengthening. It's important Europe sticks together to protect ourselves

commonly from these security threats. When the Hungarians talk

about at least for now suspending Greece from Schengen, with your

influence and authority you would say no way? I have no influence over

such a political decision. The head of Europol carries a voice these

days. I am advising ministers that we need to make sure we can do the

things that can already work better, information exchange,

operation co-ordination to clamp down on the people smuggling gangs

that are making this situation much worse. They flooded into this market

in an entrepreneurial way in 2015 providing legal services... And

trafficking children? Yes, some of them trafficking children, and we

are concerned about the number of unaccompanied minors that have

arrived in Europe over the last year that have frankly gone missing in

the system and are vulnerable in some cases. A shocking failure that

they have reached the" Safety" of the European Union and then they

have gone missing in their thousands. Yes, but there is an

innocent explanation to most of it. We know some children have escaped,

if I can call it that, from children's homes and have gone to

meet up with a family friend somewhere perhaps. There aren't

necessarily thousands of children currently being exploited, but they

are definitely vulnerable to that. We have seen an increasing rate of

exportation over the recent years, though. I need to ask you about one

more issue, you're a Welshman and you're a Brit, you must be looking

at the debate in the UK, the Brexit, whether to stay or leave the

European Union. If the UK votes to leave the European Union, with the

UK have to leave the Europol framework? Yes. You would have to

quit? I think so, yes. In that sense, yes. This is obviously not

about me. It's not about you but it's about Europol. David Cameron,

one of his developing arguments seems to be, if we leave the

European Union then it's a massive security problem for the UK not

least because all of these people currently being controlled by

British and French immigration and the control officers on the French

side of the channel will be allowed to move across the Channel and the

process and therefore camped out in England and not in France any more.

Is that you're reading? We have been talking about in this interview the

extent to which terrorist and other threats have become international.

The real security threats that we face today travel to the UK, arrived

here, crossing through Europe in particular. Whether the UK is in or

out of the EU, we still have to have significant, even more advanced

Corporation with European neighbours. It could be harder if we

leave the EU? You can do that outside the EU but it will be more

costly and certainly much less effective. The UK would be accenting

itself from having access to the kind of well-developed arrangements

that have existed now and over the last 40 years. In this debate there

are many sides to the argument, I understand that, but I don't see any

security benefits for the UK leaving the EU. You're saying something the

potentially politically explosive. You're saying Britain is going to

suffer severe detrimental effects in security terms if it leaves the EU?

I didn't say that, I said it would make Britain's job harder to fight

crime and terrorism because it wouldn't have the same access to

very well-developed European corporation mechanisms that are in

place today. Rob Wainwright, thank you very much for being on

HARDtalk. Thank you. Thank you very much.