00:00Now coming up we'll be joined by Barstian Vector, the EU counter-terrorism coordinator.
00:05The Dutch diplomat is at the forefront of Europe's fight against terrorism and is in the spotlight
00:10today given yesterday marks 10 years since the deadly Brussels bombings that took the lives of
00:1532 people. 16 who were on board a metro just a stone's throw from the Uranus studio here
00:22in the EU quarter and 16 who were inside the Brussels airport departure area just checking in
00:28for their flights. Good morning thank you so much for joining us here on Europe Today. So look 10
00:33years on now from those horrific Brussels attacks for victims and their families watching this
00:37morning what changes do you feel have been made here that makes Europe safer than it was back in
00:412016? Well first of all like you say today is really that we think about all the victims like
00:46we did yesterday there were national commemorations in Belgium. Why? Because this affected so many
00:50people I think we all know people in some way have been affected by these attacks who that reverberated
00:56really throughout Europe. Now what I'd say to victims today is that we're in a much better
01:00place. We haven't seen this type of large-scale concerted attacks in Europe for the last 10
01:04years or so and that's very much thanks to I would say in the first place the activities of our
01:11law enforcement intelligence agencies throughout Europe. So that's obviously very reassuring as well
01:15for our viewers who are tuning in this morning. So what are the chances of dying today in a terrorist
01:19attack in Europe? Well if you consider the the number of attacks that we've seen we've seen a
01:23different kind of attacks we've seen the more self-initiated attacks by lone actors if you will
01:28so IS that was responsible for the terrorist attacks in Brussels 10 years ago has really adjusted its
01:34strategies which means that we've also had to adjust. So I would say that the chances are low
01:39but what we see is that we're trying to grasp a new phenomenon which is new which is young people
01:45radicalizing very fast radicalizing online and that's something we have to grapple with today.
01:51And as someone who covered those terrorist attacks I remember back 10 years ago there was no trust
01:56between member states there was very bad coordination as well between authorities has that improved
02:00today? Very much so very much so we've in Europe and I should say very much pushed also by the
02:06Belgians and the and the French who of course were the first affected by these major terrorist attacks
02:11their services have very very much put together for instance a task force together called Task Force
02:16to work together on these investigations but also pushed very much for efforts at European level
02:22meaning that we've put in place interoperable databases we've strengthened our borders we exchange
02:27information much more fast at different levels a national level but also at European level and mostly
02:31what's very important is that at European levels also beyond strengthening our borders we've invested
02:36much more in relations and dialogues with third countries because we know that terrorist threat emanates
02:41also from beyond our borders so much. And we're reporting of course on the 24th day of the ongoing war
02:47in Iran we've seen that Europol has warned there could be immediate repercussions for us here in
02:52Europe be that violent extremism or cyber attacks what are you seeing? Look any situation of conflict and
02:58violence instability in any region always gives an opportunity to terrorists to assert themselves and
03:03what we're seeing is of course that it creates a lot of narratives a lot of propaganda online that again
03:08the the young people that I mentioned before and many others will be affected by can be influenced
03:12by. That being said Iran has for a long time already been known as being a what I would call
03:18a lethal
03:19spoiler using terrorist tactics on our soil instrumentalizing criminal networks and to carry out
03:25attacks to basically disrupt our society to target dissidents cyber attacks we've seen all a range of
03:32uh let's say instruments used by uh by the Iranians so it's been on our radar for a long time
03:38of course in
03:38the current context you could argue that that threat will only increase okay question vector thank you
03:43so much for coming to us here on Europe today on Euronews
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