Nations must share intelligence to stop extremist groups slipping across borders and using the Internet to plan attacks, ministers insisted on Monday as they sought concrete commitments to halt intel failures.
In the wake of the November 13 Paris attacks allegedly masterminded by a Belgian-born extremist, Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders admitted more must be done.
“Intelligence services must get used to not only collecting information, but to sharing it,” he told AFP on the sidelines of a conference gathering more than 50 countries to discuss how to thwart terror groups.
“We are doing it more and more among European services, but there is still work to be done,” he acknowledged at the conference hosted by The Netherlands.
Held as part of the Global Counter Terrorism Forum (GCTF) and the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, the talks were taking place nearly two months after the Paris attacks which killed 130 people.
And they come as The Netherlands begins its six-month rotating presidency of the European Union.
“What we face on Monday is terrorism 2.0. Like a virus, it adapts to survive and becomes more resilient,” Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders told the opening of the talks.