Gijs de Vries Quotes (38 Quotes)

We remain vulnerable. There is no such thing as 100 percent security against terrorism.

The European Borders Agency in Warsaw has been created to help border forces in Europe cooperate more.

In intelligence work, there are limits to the amount of information one can share. Confidentiality is essential.

If information ends up in the wrong hands, the lives of people very often are immediately at risk.

We have an integrated picture of the threat from outside and from within that is provided not only to our foreign ministers but also to our justice and interior ministers.

Europe has a long and tragic history of mostly domestic terrorism.

We have 13 global conventions on aspects of terrorism. Unfortunately, so far only one-third of the world's countries have ratified all 12.

There are no automatic links between poverty and terrorism. Among millions of poor people in the world, only a few turn to terrorism.

If you exchange information internationally, you must strengthen data protection. Those are two sides of the same coin.

Indiscriminate attacks on civilians ought, under all circumstances, to be illegal in war as in peacetime.

It's important that we work very closely with moderate Muslim forces locally, nationally and internationally.

We're still stymied by the old stand-off between those who wish to fight terrorism and resistance fighters.

In the fight against terrorism, national agencies keep full control over their police forces, security and intelligence agencies and judicial authorities.

Muslim organisations tend to have a low level of organisation. The communities in Europe are quite diverse.

If you combat an international phenomenon, it is indispensable to share information internationally.

The central role in the fight against terrorism is with national authorities.

Our strategy should be to strengthen the hand of moderate Muslims.

There have been a number of notable, though silent, successes. One plot was discovered because of good cooperation between France and Germany.

We still lack a global definition of terrorism.

The idea is to have global standards. There is so much travel that if you just had a regional standard, it would probably ultimately have to be changed.

The majority of the world's Muslims do not believe that terrorism is a legitimate strategy or that Islam is incompatible with democracy.

Look at Iraq; look at Afghanistan, where at great personal physical risk people have gone to the polls and have rejected the appeal from Bin Laden and his allies to stay at home.

The violent radicals do not legitimately represent the overwhelming majority of the world's Muslims.

I remain optimistic. What we've seen in Europe and the rest of the world is that freedom has a much stronger attraction than radical fundamentalism.

Terrorists have failed in what is arguably al Qaida's most important objective - to trigger revolutions.

We are familiar with terrorism. But indiscriminate, cross-border, religiously motivated terrorism is new.

There is a series of sectors which could be severely disrupted by terrorist attacks, particularly if they were to happen in several member states simultaneously.

Terrorists always have the advantage of surprise.

Terrorists have failed to trigger mass conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe. We should draw strength from that fact.

Americans must play a critical role more than they have in the past couple of years. That is the strategy of the European Union.

We have adopted a programme of legislation to combat terrorist financing and make it more difficult for terrorists to travel across borders.

You can't get closer to the heart of national sovereignty than national security and intelligence services.

There have been hundreds of European arrest warrants issued. Extradition used to take up to a year now that is down to two months.

In situations of military conflict, civil strife, lawlessness, bad governance, and human rights violations, terrorists find it easier to hide, train and prepare their attacks.

Police forces collect information to be used in a public court to get people convicted. Security services gather information that does not necessarily lead to people being prosecuted and in many cases needs to remain confidential.

The key to tackling Islamist fundamentalism and terrorism from the Islamist community is in the hands of moderate Muslims.

Ultimately, freedom and democracy are stronger than fear and tyranny.

I have never come across a technology that doesn't change. This is inevitable. You have to adapt your systems as technology develops.