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

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

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.
Gijs de Vries

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

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

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

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

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.
Gijs de Vries

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

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


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

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.
Gijs de Vries

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

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

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.
Gijs de Vries

Terrorists always have the advantage of surprise.
Gijs de Vries

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

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

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

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