GIJS DE VRIES

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

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

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.

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

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

You can't get closer to the heart of national sovereignty than national security and intelligence services.

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

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

There is a series of sectors which could be severely disrupted by terrorist attacks, particularly if they were to happen in several member states simultaneously.

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

The idea is to have global standards. There is so much travel that if you just had a regional standard, it would probably ultimately have to be changed.

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

We still lack a global definition of terrorism.

We have an integrated picture of the threat from outside and from within that is provided not only to our foreign ministers but also to our justice and interior ministers.

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

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

We're still stymied by the old stand-off between those who wish to fight terrorism and resistance fighters.

The majority of the world's Muslims do not believe that terrorism is a legitimate strategy or that Islam is incompatible with democracy.

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

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

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

We remain vulnerable. There is no such thing as 100 percent security against terrorism.

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

Ultimately, freedom and democracy are stronger than fear and tyranny.

The key to tackling Islamist fundamentalism and terrorism from the Islamist community is in the hands of moderate Muslims.