At the heart of the anti-terror web

EU counter-terrorism czar Gilles de Kerchove coordinates his plans for safeguarding personal freedom within the European Council matrix. We sought him out

The shockwaves from the terror in Oslo this summer have subsided in Brussels. It is not the lone wolf right-wing extremist who is considered the main threat to EU security. In the EU and Nato corridors of power, the main threat is still AQ, the acronym for Al Qaida.

In the balance between security and fundamental freedoms, it is rare that the fundamental freedoms get the last word in counter-terrorism work. Be prepared, therefore, to pass through body scanners at Brussels airport. According to Gilles de Kerchove, the EU counter-terrorism coordinator, these machines are simply too efficient at revealing swallowed explosives to ignore.

De Kerchove doesn't particularly enjoy untying his shoes and his belt when he goes through the metal detector at the airport security, and he would not be pleased to find his scanned body image posted on YouTube. However, the latest generation of scanners, says De Kerchove, does not generate body pictures and is essential to counter terrorism. 

“The new generation neither harms your health, nor invades your privacy, and is effective.”
 
Counter-terrorism is becoming an increasingly more complicated game of outsmarting the criminals. This is because terrorists can profit from the freedom to move across the EU’s internal borders to gather and share information with international crime networks. Weapons and explosives are also easily found via the internet, which explains European Commission proposals to stem and control the sale of fertilisers and other chemicals which can be used for bomb-making. 

Today, counter-terrorism has become smarter, not only at collecting data, but also at connecting the dots. According to De Kerchove, if the authorities had connected the dots ten years ago, they could have prevented the 9/11 attacks. A number of plots have been successfully aborted, several of which were hatched in Brussels, but there are still a number of lessons to be learned.

Those lessons are coordinated in Brussels and the spider in this web is the Belgian lawyer and political animal Gilles de Kerchove. From 1989-1995 he was head of cabinet to the former minister for justice, Melchior Wathelet, who had to resign amid public rage over the handling of the Dutroux child-murder case (Wathelet’s name is noticeably absent from De Kerchove’s CV). 

It would be hard for terrorists to find De Kerchove in the maze of the corridors of the Council building. His assistant leads us up and down hundreds of flights of stairs. For ten minutes we feel utterly lost in the internal labyrinth of the Justus Lipsius complex. Sometimes we catch a glimpse of a window and the outside world as we pass endless meeting rooms on our way to De Kerchove’s office.

There is nothing even remotely James Bond-ish about De Kerchove, except that the aristocratic 55-year-old probably looks quite at ease in a dinner jacket. Javier Solana, the former EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, appointed De Kerchove in 2007. He reports directly to a fellow Belgian, the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy.

According to Annegret Bendiek, senior associate of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, SWP, this gives De Kerchove a stronger position than his predecessor, the Dutchman Gijs de Vrijs, who did not wield the same independence and power and left his office after two years.

Gilles de Kerchove and Herman Van Rompuy have very close contact, and De Kerchove has pretty much free rein to be as active as he wants. But as this is the post-Lisbon treaty EU, nothing is quite as clear as that. De Kerchove also reports to the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Catherine Ashton; however, he doesn’t sit in Ashton’s External Action Service building but rather, as Bendiek is at pains to point out, in the Council building instead.

This lack of clarity has led to grumbling in the European Parliament. The liberal Dutch MEP Sophie in ’t Veld has produced a report in which she demands greater transparency over the nature and costs of De Kerchove’s activities.

The report has been put back in the drawer for the time being. It was up for a vote just around the tenth anniversary of 9/11; questioning counter-terrorism in a frank tone of voice, demanding clarity on financing, was not deemed appropriate by MEPs.

“If the security hawks are so convinced that the strategy is good why are they so afraid of transparency?” she asks.

In ’t Veld calls De Kerchove “frank and dedicated” but she also questions his incessant demands for more data collection, when he “never shows any justification for the privacy infringements”.

He defends himself by saying that in order to uphold his key aim of safeguarding personal freedom, he needs to ensure authorities receive more information and implement more controls. 

There is plenty of data collection in his office. A minor rain forest's worth of documents is piled up around the room. On the wall hangs an ancient sabre, but there is no bulletproof vest slung over his desk chair. This is the office of an overworked professor, rather than that of an anti-terror czar.

Judging by the piles of documents in his office, he is very active, although, frankly, many of them look untouched and unread.

“Ah,” he says gesturing towards the documents and with an air of despair, “I’m a very busy man.”

He’s just come back from a trip to the US and is clearly suffering from a nasty cold and jetlag. There is a line of visitors outside his office and the Bulletin interview will have to wrap up quickly.  

After Anders Breivik’s terror rampage in Norway this summer, right-wing terrorism is included in counter-terrorism discussions. At the most recent Council meeting for justice ministers, the Norwegian Knut Storberget was invited to share his views on the prevention of terrorism. There was strong agreement on the need for strengthened transnational cooperation and exchange of information.

However, it is clear that in the corridors of power, right-wing extremism is not considered counter-terrorism’s main concern. A lone wolf actor, like the Norwegian terrorist, is notoriously difficult to keep track of.

“The AQ threat is higher,” says De Kerchove. “It's their appeal we have to reduce.”

Especially in Northern Africa, where the Arab spring is raising many hopes but is also creating fertile ground for extremist solutions. De Kerchove is hoping for some sort of demobilisation of weapons in the area as well as a programme of economic aid and support for civil society to restore hope for ordinary civilians.

“This is all backyard work,” says De Kerchove.

Part of this backyard work entails a new programme to fight radicalisation, which was inaugurated in September. The idea is to raise the awareness of teachers, youth councillors and others who work with young people.

Unlike some, De Kerchove isn’t intimidated by the Americans. He wants to cooperate very closely with the US Department of Homeland Security. Studying at Yale Law School in Connecticut following his degree from the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) probably provided a platform for solid pro-American views, although he still sounds like Maurice Chevalier when he speaks English.

At a recent seminar on terrorism and privacy in Brussels, De Kerchove even said that he wanted to see the creation of a common EU-US anti-terrorism agency within the next ten years. His pro-American views are also expressed in diplomatic documents released by WikiLeaks.

“The WikiLeaks cables did not do any real harm to counter-terrorism efforts, as the undercover agents were not revealed. On the contrary, it had a positive effect. It proved that the US is fighting breaches of human rights. But I don’t agree with publicising diplomatic reports. Diplomats have to find a way to accommodate differences without antagonising each other,” says De Kerchove, as he prepares himself for lunch with the French ambassador. 

What constitutes a terrorist act?

‘Terrorist acts’ mean intentional acts which, given their nature or context, may seriously damage a country or international organisation and which are defined as an offence under national law. These include:

• kidnapping or hostage taking;
• causing extensive destruction to a Government or public facility, a transport system, an infrastructure facility;
• seizure of aircraft, ships or other means of public or goods transport;
• manufacture, possession, acquisition, transport, supply or use of weapons, explosives, or of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons,
• participating in the activities of a terrorist group, including by supplying information or material resources, or by funding its activities in any way, with knowledge of the fact that such participation will contribute to the criminal activities of the group.

In order for these acts to constitute terrorist acts, they must be carried out with the aim of seriously intimidating a population, or unduly compelling a Government or an international organisation to perform or abstain from performing any act, or seriously destabilising or destroying the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a country or an international organisation.