EU chief warns against 'mixing up' refugees and terrorists
- 8 years ago
One week after the Paris attacks, Gilles de Kerchove, the EU’s Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, gave an interview to FRANCE 24’s Eve Irvine. He is not convinced that terrorists are infiltrating Europe through the refugee and migrant route.
"I don’t believe Daesh (the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group) really needs to sneak in and use the migration flow to send fighters to Europe. First, they can tap on a huge reservoir of Europeans who are already radicalized and inspire them; they may [also] send back Europeans who went [abroad] for jihad and some of them may not have been detected by police", Gilles de Kerchove told FRANCE 24.
"I would say, cynically speaking, Daesh may try to send someone through the migration flow just to instil doubts that among the refugees there might be a lot of terrorists -- which is not the case. We have to be extremely cautious [not] to mix up the two because it’s pretty toxic", he added.
The EU's top counter-terrorism official also explained in detail some of the measures demanded by France at Friday’s meeting of EU interior and justice ministers: the adoption of the air Passenger Name Record (PNR) and tougher passport checks for Europeans who leave or enter the Schengen zone.
Programme presented by Eve Irvine
Produced by Isabelle Romero and Jean-Christophe Felt
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"I don’t believe Daesh (the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group) really needs to sneak in and use the migration flow to send fighters to Europe. First, they can tap on a huge reservoir of Europeans who are already radicalized and inspire them; they may [also] send back Europeans who went [abroad] for jihad and some of them may not have been detected by police", Gilles de Kerchove told FRANCE 24.
"I would say, cynically speaking, Daesh may try to send someone through the migration flow just to instil doubts that among the refugees there might be a lot of terrorists -- which is not the case. We have to be extremely cautious [not] to mix up the two because it’s pretty toxic", he added.
The EU's top counter-terrorism official also explained in detail some of the measures demanded by France at Friday’s meeting of EU interior and justice ministers: the adoption of the air Passenger Name Record (PNR) and tougher passport checks for Europeans who leave or enter the Schengen zone.
Programme presented by Eve Irvine
Produced by Isabelle Romero and Jean-Christophe Felt
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
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