The European Commission on Monday (12 January) said it has no plans to launch an EU-wide intelligence agency despite previous efforts to get a proposal on the table. Former EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding had floated the idea in 2013 when she announced long-term plans to get a spy agency up and running by 2020...

...The commission instead wants to enhance data-sharing at the EU level by making sure its EU intelligence analysis centre (IntCen) works better with other EU agencies like Europol, the EU's joint police body. IntCen’s director, Ilkka Salmi, who was the former head of the Finnish Security Intelligence Service (Supo), told Belgian magazine MO in an interview in 2014 that the centre does not gather its own intelligence.“We do not have a collection capability. We do not deal with personal data. We do not carry out clandestine operations,” he said.

Dutch liberal MEP Sophie Int’Veld on Monday said IntCen should be transformed into an intelligence agency so long as it has “a proper treaty base, a legislative framework and arrangements for democratic oversight.”

Alles bij de bron; EUObserver