Wednesday

29th Mar 2023

EU intelligence bureau sent officers to Libya

  • Rebel camp near Benghazi. SitCen field officers must be 'able to withstand potentially physically and psychologically harsh working environment' (Photo: Al Jazeera)

The EU's intelligence bureau, the Joint Situation Centre, has recently sent people to Libya. But its new director says there is little prospect of turning it into a genuine intelligence-gathering service even in the "long term."

Speaking to EUobserver in the European Parliament in Brussels on Monday (11 April), Joint Situation Centre chief Ilkka Salmi confirmed that one of his staff accompanied a European External Action Service (EEAS) fact-finding mission to Tripoli on 6 March and that another one took part in a visit to Benghazi on 5 April.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Become an expert on Europe

Get instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

"We want to avoid the impression that these were spooks of any kind. They were technical specialists who went to help with satellite phones and that type of thing. There was certainly no tasking," he explained. "These are the only missions of this kind that we have carried out since I became director two months ago."

'Tasking' is intelligence jargon for being asked to get information on a given subject.

Salmi, a former Finnish secret service chief, earlier told MEPs in the civil liberties committee that the Joint Situation Centre (SitCen) is different from member states' services because it does not hunt for its own information and because it looks at "strategic" threats instead of "operational" intelligence on individual people or terrorist plots.

"SitCen does not run its own sources. We base our work on assessing open sources, on monitoring EU missions and EU delegations, on information which flows from member states' services," he said. "It doesn't collect data on individuals. We do strategic analysis, so we don't have that type of information and it is not needed to complete our tasks."

"In my view it would certainly require a change in the treaties and a huge cultural change if SitCen tried to become such an agency," he added. "National security is still handled at home by member states and in that way I don't see in the near future, nor in the mid-, or even in the long-term, any likelihood of a European intelligence capacity."

For his part, Pierre Vimont, the secretary general of the EEAS, the parent body of SitCen, told MEPs that a new EU intelligence agency would create confusion.

"You've got all the national security agencies, so to put an EU agency on top of that, you would have duplication and overlap of effort and that wouldn't enhance European security," he said.

Salmi and Vimont said there is no need for parliament scrutiny of SitCen because it does not do its own operations and because MEPs already have oversight of the EEAS itself.

"The EEAS is overlooked by the parliament under very strict rules stipulated by the treaty, so political scrutiny exists. You've got [EEAS] political representatives and the high representative [Catherine Ashton] who report to you and you have access to [EEAS] confidential documents," Vimont noted.

Salmi said SitCen currently employs just over 100 people, about 70 percent of whom are seconded from member states' intelligence services and the rest of whom are EU officials.

It has three units: operations, analysis and a section dealing with communications and consular services. It gets information from all 27 member states plus Norway and Switzerland, the intelligence directorate of the EU Military Staff in Brussels, the EU Satellite Centre in Spain, the Frontex border control agency in Warsaw and the Europol joint police body in The Hague.

The operations unit handles "crisis monitoring" and is a "kind of 24/7 permanence" for keeping the EEAS and member states' diplomats in Brussels up to date.

"We do monitoring and assessing 24 hours a day and seven days a week, focusing on sensitive geographic areas, terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and global threats," Salmi said. "In recent weeks and recent months our focus has been on events in Africa and the Middle East and their implications for EU decision-making."

In an insight into the kind of people that might have been sent to Libya, SitCen last year advertised for a 'Deployable Security Information Officer.' The notice asked for someone "physically fit and stress-resistant. Able to withstand potentially physically and psychologically harsh working environment."

A contact familiar with the work of SitCen earlier told this website: "These are fairly normal people who have perhaps in their lives had some experience of being out in the field in a place less comfortable than Washington … They are people who can write reports. Who do not mind not staying in five star hotels. Who know how to take precautions when they go out at night."

Column

What does China really want? Perhaps we could try asking

Perhaps even more surprising to the West was the fact that the Iran-Saudi Arabia deal was not brokered by the United States, or the European Union, but by the People's Republic of China. Since when was China mediating peace agreements?

Opinion

Biden's 'democracy summit' poses questions for EU identity

From the perspective of international relations, the EU is a rare bird indeed. Theoretically speaking it cannot even exist. The charter of the United Nations, which underlies the current system of global governance, distinguishes between states and organisations of states.

Latest News

  1. EU approves 2035 phaseout of polluting cars and vans
  2. New measures to shield the EU against money laundering
  3. What does China really want? Perhaps we could try asking
  4. Dear EU, the science is clear: burning wood for energy is bad
  5. Biden's 'democracy summit' poses questions for EU identity
  6. Finnish elections and Hungary's Nato vote in focus This WEEK
  7. EU's new critical raw materials act could be a recipe for conflict
  8. Okay, alright, AI might be useful after all

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. EFBWWEFBWW and FIEC do not agree to any exemptions to mandatory prior notifications in construction
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersNordic and Baltic ways to prevent gender-based violence
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Economic gender equality now! Nordic ways to close the pension gap
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Pushing back the push-back - Nordic solutions to online gender-based violence
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: The Nordics are ready to push for gender equality
  6. Promote UkraineInvitation to the National Demonstration in solidarity with Ukraine on 25.02.2023

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Azerbaijan Embassy9th Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council Ministerial Meeting and 1st Green Energy Advisory Council Ministerial Meeting
  2. EFBWWEU Social Dialogue review – publication of the European Commission package and joint statement of ETUFs
  3. Oxfam InternationalPan Africa Program Progress Report 2022 - Post Covid and Beyond
  4. WWFWWF Living Planet Report
  5. Europan Patent OfficeHydrogen patents for a clean energy future: A global trend analysis of innovation along hydrogen value chains

Join EUobserver

Support quality EU news

Join us