The Merits of Informality in Bilateral and Multilateral Cooperation

摘要

According to the intelligence agencies themselves, informality in bilateral and multilateral cooperation brings more efficiency in day-to-day operational work, and they all agree on this well-functioning system. However appealing the idea of a European intelligence service looks at first glance, it would really undermine the action of national intelligence services. Even if services are not used to going public about their successes or failures, the situation has changed slightly since the terror attacks in 2015-2016, and one should not doubt that the European services are doing their utmost to ensure the protection of European citizens. The EU indeed has a role to play as far as the security of fellow European citizens is concerned, but this role should not involve the creation of any European intelligence agency. It should rather focus on a better acknowledgment of the operational needs of the services in an appropriate legal framework. And it could help if (European) national intelligence services accepted the idea of communicating more cooperatively, as they have with other services. This, undoubtedly, should prevent any voice of criticism before it rises, without jeopardizing the success of these cooperative actions.