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No white smoke in France. It is still not clear who will lead the next government. Emmanuel Macron will begin a new round of talks today, Tuesday. However, with an announcement on Monday evening, the French president ensured that the fronts continue to harden. In the name of “institutional stability”, he ruled out the possibility of the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) forming the new government, Macron said. The left-wing alliance emerged as the strongest force in the parliamentary elections.
“The president has decided to disregard the results of an election that he himself called. We will not let up”, said Cyrielle Chatelain, chairwoman of the Green Group in Parliament. The Greens are members of the NRP.
The left-wing alliance had previously announced that it would only return to the Élysée Palace for talks if Macron accepted a government under the NFP’s preferred candidate Lucie Castets. The president’s camp, on the other hand, fears that a left-wing prime minister would reverse his unpopular pension reform and increase taxes and public spending.
On Saturday, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the controversial leader of La France Insoumise (LFI), increased the pressure on Macron. His proposal: a left-wing government, but without ministers from Mélenchon’s far-left party. In doing so, he took the wind out of Macron’s sails, as the latter had expressly spoken out against ministers from LFI. The palace and the president reacted to this proposal with silence.
Have a wonderful day!
Authorities have repeatedly accused the messaging service Telegram of being too lax in dealing with criminal and extremist activities on its platform – including in Germany. In the past, the company has removed extremist content and prevented illegal activities under pressure from governments and international organizations. However, this has been done selectively rather than systematically, which has led to criticism of the effectiveness and consistency of these measures. France has now reacted: French police arrested the founder and head of the company, Pavel Durov, in Paris this weekend.
However, the EU Commission has no direct action against Durov. It is not even responsible for supervision under the Digital Services Act (DSA), as Telegram is not designated as a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) within the meaning of the DSA. “It is not for the Commission to comment on a national investigation”, said a Commission spokesperson.
The arrest of Durov is the responsibility of the French authorities and is subject to French criminal law. “Criminal prosecution is not one of the possible sanctions for a violation of the DSA“, the spokesperson clarified. The DSA does not define what is illegal, nor does it constitute a criminal offense and therefore cannot be used for arrests. Nevertheless, the spokesperson emphasized: “We are closely monitoring developments in connection with Telegram and are ready to cooperate with the French authorities should this be necessary.”
French President Emmanuel Macron countered rumors on Monday that Durov’s arrest was politically motivated. France is deeply committed to freedom of expression, he said. “The arrest of the head of Telegram on French territory took place as part of an ongoing judicial investigation“, Macron wrote on X. “This is in no way a political decision. It is up to the judges to decide.”
A police spokesman told Reuters that the national cybercrime and fraud bureaus were investigating Durov for failing to cooperate in cyber and financial crimes on Telegram. He is still in custody, the spokesperson said. French media previously reported that Durov was complicit in drug trafficking, fraud and several offenses related to child abuse due to a lack of intervention on Telegram and insufficient cooperation with authorities.
The Federal Ministry of the Interior did not wish to comment on specific measures and accusations made by the French authorities. However, there is cooperation between Telegram and the Federal Criminal Police Office with regard to deletion requests and official removal orders, “which we welcome”. However, the ministry still sees room for improvement in other areas.
The BKA sends Telegram both deletion requests with the request to independently review and, if necessary, remove the content based on its own user guidelines, as well as removal orders based on the Ordinance on Combating the Dissemination of Terrorist Online Content (TCO Ordinance). Telegram has complied with the removal orders in all cases to date; the deletion requests only in part. “However, Telegram continues to refuse to provide information on inventory data”, the Federal Ministry of the Interior announced.
In Germany, the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) is responsible for sanctioning hosting services. It can oblige providers based in Germany to take specific measures to prevent the dissemination of terrorist content via their services if the service clearly does not act with sufficient initiative. However, Telegram has appointed its legal representative in Belgium for the TCO Regulation. Accordingly, the Belgian regulatory authority BIPT is responsible for sanctioning Telegram. “There was already an exchange on Telegram with BIPT in April 2024, in which it was also suggested that a procedure for the implementation of ‘specific measures’ be included”, said a BNetzA spokesperson.
When it comes to criminal activities or even child abuse, the EU’s DSA is relevant, which is intended to protect users in general from illegal content online. It has been directly applicable in all EU countries since February 2024. Users can report illegal content. Platforms must set up an easily accessible reporting system and respond quickly. Users can complain to the national Digital Services Coordinator (DSC) if there are problems with the reporting and remediation process. The DSC – in this country the BNetzA – can then initiate investigations and impose penalties in the event of systemic violations. The Commission is only responsible for VLOPs.
The Belgian DSC is in turn responsible for Telegram. However, the Belgian government has not yet officially designated a DSC. For this reason, the Commission has already initiated infringement proceedings against Belgium.
The regulatory authority BIPT is currently acting as a “proto-DSC”. According to its own information, the Federal Network Agency is working with the Belgian authority on Telegram at European level via the AGORA information exchange system provided by the Commission. “The German DSC has not yet received any complaints about Telegram”, said the spokesperson. “If we receive complaints about DSA violations by Telegram, these will be forwarded to the Belgian authority.”
The matter is politically explosive because tensions between France and Russia have been rising for months. The French authorities had accused Russia of trying to destabilize the country in the run-up to the Olympic Games in Paris because Russia does not like France’s tough stance in the Ukraine war. Russia denies this. However, it is undisputed that Telegram is very popular in the successor states of the Soviet Union. Both Russian and Ukrainian government agencies use the messaging service extensively to disseminate information about the war in Ukraine.
What’s more, 39-year-old Durov was born in Russia and studied at the University of St. Petersburg. He describes his political views as “libertarian”. Together with his brother Nikolai, he first founded the platform VK, formerly known as VKontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook, in 2006. This was followed by the founding of Telegram in 2013. A year later, Durov sold his VK shares to Alisher Usmanov, an entrepreneur loyal to the Kremlin.
During his time in Russia, Durov repeatedly had problems with the Russian authorities, including because he refused to close down groups on VK that were disagreeable with the Kremlin. In 2011, protesters used VK to organize demonstrations against the regime after the parliamentary elections.
Durov left Russia in 2014. In the years that followed, the entrepreneur lived in Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco. In 2017, he moved to Dubai, where Telegram is also based. “I’d rather be free than take orders from anyone”, he said in a TV interview. His fortune is estimated at $15.5 billion by Forbes magazine.
According to his company, Durov is a citizen of France and the United Arab Emirates, among other countries. The entrepreneur repeatedly feels under pressure from governments. However, the app should remain a “neutral platform” and not become a “player in geopolitics”.
In a recently published study by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the authors warned of significant security flaws, which also make it possible to use Telegram to exert political influence. They are particularly critical of the opaque MTProto encryption protocol, as its lack of transparency makes it difficult for independent experts to verify the security and integrity of the protocol. This lack of transparency could conceal potential vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers.
In addition, the fact that standard and group chats are not end-to-end encrypted increases the risk of Telegram itself or third parties gaining access to the content of the communication. This undermines the privacy of users and increases vulnerability to surveillance and misuse.
To counteract these risks, the authors suggest that politicians enforce stricter regulations, particularly within the framework of the DSA. This could force Telegram to introduce higher standards of transparency and moderation in order to prevent the spread of illegal content and ensure user safety.
In fact, Telegram, like all platforms, is currently covered by the DSA, but not by the stricter transparency and documentation requirements that apply to VLOPs. Durov boasts that one billion people worldwide will soon be using Telegram. However, the company claims that there are fewer than 45 million users in the EU, which is the threshold for VLOPs. The Commission is currently checking whether this figure is correct. It may make its own calculations and come to a different conclusion.
In mid-August, the Air Force barracks in Cologne-Wahn were briefly closed. The Bundeswehr feared that the drinking water was contaminated. However, the suspicion of an act of sabotage was not confirmed. Nevertheless, fears of possible hybrid attacks of this kind are growing. In Finland, there were a series of break-ins at waterworks in the summer. Finnish security expert Minna Ålander explains why Europe needs to pay more attention to this “gray zone aggression”.
Ms. Ålander, who is responsible for the series of break-ins in Finland?
This series of incidents is unusual because many break-ins have happened in quick succession, so the frequency is interesting. The Finnish police have not yet released any details on whether these were acts of sabotage. What we do know is that the water quality was not affected. So whatever they were trying to do didn’t work completely.
Were the Finnish security authorities prepared for this?
Finland has had an overall defense system in place since the 1960s that brings together all actors and areas relevant to the functioning of society. Coordination and cooperation between various authorities and other stakeholders therefore works very well. The system is maintained, among other things, by the so-called national defense courses, which take place several times a year. Ministries, authorities, providers of critical infrastructure, media and business representatives practice various crisis scenarios. Finland has therefore been prepared for various sabotage and other disruptive actions since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression. Anyone in Europe who is not has not heard the shot.
Were you surprised by these attacks?
No, even if we don’t yet know whether Russia is the mastermind. Of course, Finland expected Russia to react to our NATO membership. Russia has defined all EU countries as hostile countries, so it makes no difference that Finland and Sweden are now in NATO. So we would all have been targets anyway. The surprise was actually that it took so long for Russia to free up the capacity to do something like this. And it would be good to look at this across Europe. So that we don’t focus so much on these individual incidents somewhere, but ask ourselves whether there is a pattern.
So you see a pattern?
In general, there is a pattern to this so-called hybrid warfare. It would be important to create a common picture of the various sabotage operations in Europe. For example, there were also incidents in France during the Olympic Games when railroad lines were paralyzed. In Europe, we are not particularly good at recognizing the larger pattern and learning from each other. So where is what happening and how is it perhaps connected? Is there a strategy that is currently being tested? It has been absolutely clear that the danger of sabotage and other hybrid actions has increased enormously throughout Europe since two and a half years ago, since the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. And it is regrettable that coordination is still not working particularly well.
What should the EU do?
The EU can play a very important role, especially in this so-called “gray zone aggression”. These are actions that pursue a specific goal – for example, breaking into waterworks – but these actions take place below the borderline of armed conflict. That is why escalation management also plays a major role here. The EU can react as a political union, unlike NATO as a military alliance. The EU can fill a gap. The problem with these hybrid attacks is that the legal situation is often inadequate to respond to them. And this is where the EU can help the individual members who are then affected, both practically and by signaling political support to the outside world.
What can this look like?
The EU has developed the hybrid toolbox to enable better coordination and joint responses. Member states can request teams for a rapid response to hybrid threats. For example, Finland activated the toolbox in the case of the Balticconector gas pipeline in October 2023, when the pipeline was damaged by the anchor of a Chinese ship. In the case of instrumentalized migration on the Finnish-Russian border, Finland sought support from the EU border management agency Frontex and not from NATO.
Bartjan Wegter has been in office as the EU’s Counter-Terrorism Coordinator since the beginning of March. Just a few days after he took office, the Central Asian IS offshoot ISKP carried out a devastating terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall concert hall in Moscow, not far from the EU’s borders.
This was not unexpected for Wegter. The ISKP has been known as a real threat in the EU for years, he says. The threat of terrorism in general had also been a constant presence for him. It had only faded into the background in years of global wars and crises. “The fight against terrorism is more important than ever before, whether we like it or not”, he says.
Wegter’s previous professional experience, for example as Deputy Representative of the Netherlands to NATO or as part of the Security Council of the Dutch Mission to the United Nations in New York, will help him in his new role. “I feel at home in a multilateral environment”, says the 56-year-old.
The fact that Wegter now holds a position at the European Union “closes a natural circle”, as he says. After all, he was born in Brussels, his father worked in the EU Commission at the time and his mother taught at a European school.
“The steps I took in the rest of my life were always linked to the idea of European integration”, says Wegter. He was one of the very first Erasmus students to study political science in 1990, when he set off to Bologna for a stay abroad. He later studied European Affairs in Bruges.
In his current mandate as EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, Wegter sees himself as “the only actor who has a complete overview of the efforts of the member states to combat terrorism“. Although he cannot adopt any measures himself, he can raise the concerns of the individual EU states to a European level and thus initiate cooperation between countries.
It is also in contact with various organizations at national and European level. These include Europol, national border control and security authorities. Modern forms such as cyberterrorism, disinformation campaigns and foreign interference are issues “that no member state can tackle alone”. Wegter is available as a partner in these areas to make recommendations and raise awareness in the countries.
Another important task for Wegter is to drive forward the EU’s efforts to combat terrorism in exchange with third countries. “All the threats we face in the EU either come from outside our borders or are amplified by what happens outside our borders”, he says.
Although the European Commission has extensive expertise in the field of terrorism, he is “the face of the EU’s fight against terrorism”. He serves as a point of contact for third countries seeking cooperation.
According to Wegter, the EU is currently particularly active in Central Asia, northern Syria and Iraq, but also in the Sahel region and western Africa, where “worrying developments can be observed”. Most third countries are showing great interest in cooperating with the EU and its partners from the USA and the UK.
The strategy: “We always start with the regional efforts to combat terrorism and look for ways in which we can provide support.”
Overall, Bartjan Wegter believes that the EU is on the right track in the fight against terrorism. The fact that the EU created the position of Counterterrorism Coordinator after the terrorist attacks in Madrid in 2004 was essential. The threat of terrorism should still not be underestimated, but overall “we are in a much better position than we were 20 years ago“, he says. Jasper Bennink
No white smoke in France. It is still not clear who will lead the next government. Emmanuel Macron will begin a new round of talks today, Tuesday. However, with an announcement on Monday evening, the French president ensured that the fronts continue to harden. In the name of “institutional stability”, he ruled out the possibility of the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) forming the new government, Macron said. The left-wing alliance emerged as the strongest force in the parliamentary elections.
“The president has decided to disregard the results of an election that he himself called. We will not let up”, said Cyrielle Chatelain, chairwoman of the Green Group in Parliament. The Greens are members of the NRP.
The left-wing alliance had previously announced that it would only return to the Élysée Palace for talks if Macron accepted a government under the NFP’s preferred candidate Lucie Castets. The president’s camp, on the other hand, fears that a left-wing prime minister would reverse his unpopular pension reform and increase taxes and public spending.
On Saturday, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the controversial leader of La France Insoumise (LFI), increased the pressure on Macron. His proposal: a left-wing government, but without ministers from Mélenchon’s far-left party. In doing so, he took the wind out of Macron’s sails, as the latter had expressly spoken out against ministers from LFI. The palace and the president reacted to this proposal with silence.
Have a wonderful day!
Authorities have repeatedly accused the messaging service Telegram of being too lax in dealing with criminal and extremist activities on its platform – including in Germany. In the past, the company has removed extremist content and prevented illegal activities under pressure from governments and international organizations. However, this has been done selectively rather than systematically, which has led to criticism of the effectiveness and consistency of these measures. France has now reacted: French police arrested the founder and head of the company, Pavel Durov, in Paris this weekend.
However, the EU Commission has no direct action against Durov. It is not even responsible for supervision under the Digital Services Act (DSA), as Telegram is not designated as a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) within the meaning of the DSA. “It is not for the Commission to comment on a national investigation”, said a Commission spokesperson.
The arrest of Durov is the responsibility of the French authorities and is subject to French criminal law. “Criminal prosecution is not one of the possible sanctions for a violation of the DSA“, the spokesperson clarified. The DSA does not define what is illegal, nor does it constitute a criminal offense and therefore cannot be used for arrests. Nevertheless, the spokesperson emphasized: “We are closely monitoring developments in connection with Telegram and are ready to cooperate with the French authorities should this be necessary.”
French President Emmanuel Macron countered rumors on Monday that Durov’s arrest was politically motivated. France is deeply committed to freedom of expression, he said. “The arrest of the head of Telegram on French territory took place as part of an ongoing judicial investigation“, Macron wrote on X. “This is in no way a political decision. It is up to the judges to decide.”
A police spokesman told Reuters that the national cybercrime and fraud bureaus were investigating Durov for failing to cooperate in cyber and financial crimes on Telegram. He is still in custody, the spokesperson said. French media previously reported that Durov was complicit in drug trafficking, fraud and several offenses related to child abuse due to a lack of intervention on Telegram and insufficient cooperation with authorities.
The Federal Ministry of the Interior did not wish to comment on specific measures and accusations made by the French authorities. However, there is cooperation between Telegram and the Federal Criminal Police Office with regard to deletion requests and official removal orders, “which we welcome”. However, the ministry still sees room for improvement in other areas.
The BKA sends Telegram both deletion requests with the request to independently review and, if necessary, remove the content based on its own user guidelines, as well as removal orders based on the Ordinance on Combating the Dissemination of Terrorist Online Content (TCO Ordinance). Telegram has complied with the removal orders in all cases to date; the deletion requests only in part. “However, Telegram continues to refuse to provide information on inventory data”, the Federal Ministry of the Interior announced.
In Germany, the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) is responsible for sanctioning hosting services. It can oblige providers based in Germany to take specific measures to prevent the dissemination of terrorist content via their services if the service clearly does not act with sufficient initiative. However, Telegram has appointed its legal representative in Belgium for the TCO Regulation. Accordingly, the Belgian regulatory authority BIPT is responsible for sanctioning Telegram. “There was already an exchange on Telegram with BIPT in April 2024, in which it was also suggested that a procedure for the implementation of ‘specific measures’ be included”, said a BNetzA spokesperson.
When it comes to criminal activities or even child abuse, the EU’s DSA is relevant, which is intended to protect users in general from illegal content online. It has been directly applicable in all EU countries since February 2024. Users can report illegal content. Platforms must set up an easily accessible reporting system and respond quickly. Users can complain to the national Digital Services Coordinator (DSC) if there are problems with the reporting and remediation process. The DSC – in this country the BNetzA – can then initiate investigations and impose penalties in the event of systemic violations. The Commission is only responsible for VLOPs.
The Belgian DSC is in turn responsible for Telegram. However, the Belgian government has not yet officially designated a DSC. For this reason, the Commission has already initiated infringement proceedings against Belgium.
The regulatory authority BIPT is currently acting as a “proto-DSC”. According to its own information, the Federal Network Agency is working with the Belgian authority on Telegram at European level via the AGORA information exchange system provided by the Commission. “The German DSC has not yet received any complaints about Telegram”, said the spokesperson. “If we receive complaints about DSA violations by Telegram, these will be forwarded to the Belgian authority.”
The matter is politically explosive because tensions between France and Russia have been rising for months. The French authorities had accused Russia of trying to destabilize the country in the run-up to the Olympic Games in Paris because Russia does not like France’s tough stance in the Ukraine war. Russia denies this. However, it is undisputed that Telegram is very popular in the successor states of the Soviet Union. Both Russian and Ukrainian government agencies use the messaging service extensively to disseminate information about the war in Ukraine.
What’s more, 39-year-old Durov was born in Russia and studied at the University of St. Petersburg. He describes his political views as “libertarian”. Together with his brother Nikolai, he first founded the platform VK, formerly known as VKontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook, in 2006. This was followed by the founding of Telegram in 2013. A year later, Durov sold his VK shares to Alisher Usmanov, an entrepreneur loyal to the Kremlin.
During his time in Russia, Durov repeatedly had problems with the Russian authorities, including because he refused to close down groups on VK that were disagreeable with the Kremlin. In 2011, protesters used VK to organize demonstrations against the regime after the parliamentary elections.
Durov left Russia in 2014. In the years that followed, the entrepreneur lived in Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco. In 2017, he moved to Dubai, where Telegram is also based. “I’d rather be free than take orders from anyone”, he said in a TV interview. His fortune is estimated at $15.5 billion by Forbes magazine.
According to his company, Durov is a citizen of France and the United Arab Emirates, among other countries. The entrepreneur repeatedly feels under pressure from governments. However, the app should remain a “neutral platform” and not become a “player in geopolitics”.
In a recently published study by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the authors warned of significant security flaws, which also make it possible to use Telegram to exert political influence. They are particularly critical of the opaque MTProto encryption protocol, as its lack of transparency makes it difficult for independent experts to verify the security and integrity of the protocol. This lack of transparency could conceal potential vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers.
In addition, the fact that standard and group chats are not end-to-end encrypted increases the risk of Telegram itself or third parties gaining access to the content of the communication. This undermines the privacy of users and increases vulnerability to surveillance and misuse.
To counteract these risks, the authors suggest that politicians enforce stricter regulations, particularly within the framework of the DSA. This could force Telegram to introduce higher standards of transparency and moderation in order to prevent the spread of illegal content and ensure user safety.
In fact, Telegram, like all platforms, is currently covered by the DSA, but not by the stricter transparency and documentation requirements that apply to VLOPs. Durov boasts that one billion people worldwide will soon be using Telegram. However, the company claims that there are fewer than 45 million users in the EU, which is the threshold for VLOPs. The Commission is currently checking whether this figure is correct. It may make its own calculations and come to a different conclusion.
In mid-August, the Air Force barracks in Cologne-Wahn were briefly closed. The Bundeswehr feared that the drinking water was contaminated. However, the suspicion of an act of sabotage was not confirmed. Nevertheless, fears of possible hybrid attacks of this kind are growing. In Finland, there were a series of break-ins at waterworks in the summer. Finnish security expert Minna Ålander explains why Europe needs to pay more attention to this “gray zone aggression”.
Ms. Ålander, who is responsible for the series of break-ins in Finland?
This series of incidents is unusual because many break-ins have happened in quick succession, so the frequency is interesting. The Finnish police have not yet released any details on whether these were acts of sabotage. What we do know is that the water quality was not affected. So whatever they were trying to do didn’t work completely.
Were the Finnish security authorities prepared for this?
Finland has had an overall defense system in place since the 1960s that brings together all actors and areas relevant to the functioning of society. Coordination and cooperation between various authorities and other stakeholders therefore works very well. The system is maintained, among other things, by the so-called national defense courses, which take place several times a year. Ministries, authorities, providers of critical infrastructure, media and business representatives practice various crisis scenarios. Finland has therefore been prepared for various sabotage and other disruptive actions since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression. Anyone in Europe who is not has not heard the shot.
Were you surprised by these attacks?
No, even if we don’t yet know whether Russia is the mastermind. Of course, Finland expected Russia to react to our NATO membership. Russia has defined all EU countries as hostile countries, so it makes no difference that Finland and Sweden are now in NATO. So we would all have been targets anyway. The surprise was actually that it took so long for Russia to free up the capacity to do something like this. And it would be good to look at this across Europe. So that we don’t focus so much on these individual incidents somewhere, but ask ourselves whether there is a pattern.
So you see a pattern?
In general, there is a pattern to this so-called hybrid warfare. It would be important to create a common picture of the various sabotage operations in Europe. For example, there were also incidents in France during the Olympic Games when railroad lines were paralyzed. In Europe, we are not particularly good at recognizing the larger pattern and learning from each other. So where is what happening and how is it perhaps connected? Is there a strategy that is currently being tested? It has been absolutely clear that the danger of sabotage and other hybrid actions has increased enormously throughout Europe since two and a half years ago, since the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. And it is regrettable that coordination is still not working particularly well.
What should the EU do?
The EU can play a very important role, especially in this so-called “gray zone aggression”. These are actions that pursue a specific goal – for example, breaking into waterworks – but these actions take place below the borderline of armed conflict. That is why escalation management also plays a major role here. The EU can react as a political union, unlike NATO as a military alliance. The EU can fill a gap. The problem with these hybrid attacks is that the legal situation is often inadequate to respond to them. And this is where the EU can help the individual members who are then affected, both practically and by signaling political support to the outside world.
What can this look like?
The EU has developed the hybrid toolbox to enable better coordination and joint responses. Member states can request teams for a rapid response to hybrid threats. For example, Finland activated the toolbox in the case of the Balticconector gas pipeline in October 2023, when the pipeline was damaged by the anchor of a Chinese ship. In the case of instrumentalized migration on the Finnish-Russian border, Finland sought support from the EU border management agency Frontex and not from NATO.
Bartjan Wegter has been in office as the EU’s Counter-Terrorism Coordinator since the beginning of March. Just a few days after he took office, the Central Asian IS offshoot ISKP carried out a devastating terrorist attack on the Crocus City Hall concert hall in Moscow, not far from the EU’s borders.
This was not unexpected for Wegter. The ISKP has been known as a real threat in the EU for years, he says. The threat of terrorism in general had also been a constant presence for him. It had only faded into the background in years of global wars and crises. “The fight against terrorism is more important than ever before, whether we like it or not”, he says.
Wegter’s previous professional experience, for example as Deputy Representative of the Netherlands to NATO or as part of the Security Council of the Dutch Mission to the United Nations in New York, will help him in his new role. “I feel at home in a multilateral environment”, says the 56-year-old.
The fact that Wegter now holds a position at the European Union “closes a natural circle”, as he says. After all, he was born in Brussels, his father worked in the EU Commission at the time and his mother taught at a European school.
“The steps I took in the rest of my life were always linked to the idea of European integration”, says Wegter. He was one of the very first Erasmus students to study political science in 1990, when he set off to Bologna for a stay abroad. He later studied European Affairs in Bruges.
In his current mandate as EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, Wegter sees himself as “the only actor who has a complete overview of the efforts of the member states to combat terrorism“. Although he cannot adopt any measures himself, he can raise the concerns of the individual EU states to a European level and thus initiate cooperation between countries.
It is also in contact with various organizations at national and European level. These include Europol, national border control and security authorities. Modern forms such as cyberterrorism, disinformation campaigns and foreign interference are issues “that no member state can tackle alone”. Wegter is available as a partner in these areas to make recommendations and raise awareness in the countries.
Another important task for Wegter is to drive forward the EU’s efforts to combat terrorism in exchange with third countries. “All the threats we face in the EU either come from outside our borders or are amplified by what happens outside our borders”, he says.
Although the European Commission has extensive expertise in the field of terrorism, he is “the face of the EU’s fight against terrorism”. He serves as a point of contact for third countries seeking cooperation.
According to Wegter, the EU is currently particularly active in Central Asia, northern Syria and Iraq, but also in the Sahel region and western Africa, where “worrying developments can be observed”. Most third countries are showing great interest in cooperating with the EU and its partners from the USA and the UK.
The strategy: “We always start with the regional efforts to combat terrorism and look for ways in which we can provide support.”
Overall, Bartjan Wegter believes that the EU is on the right track in the fight against terrorism. The fact that the EU created the position of Counterterrorism Coordinator after the terrorist attacks in Madrid in 2004 was essential. The threat of terrorism should still not be underestimated, but overall “we are in a much better position than we were 20 years ago“, he says. Jasper Bennink