Reding: EU heeft behoefte aan eigen veiligheidsdienst (en)

BRUSSELS - EU justice commissionner Viviane Reding has said the Union should create its own intelligence service by 2020.

Speaking on Monday (4 November) to Greek daily Naftemporiki on the US snooping scandal, she said: "What we need is to strengthen Europe in this field, so we can level the playing field with our US partners."

She added: "I would therefore wish to use this occasion to negotiate an agreement on stronger secret service co-operation among the EU member states - so that we can speak with a strong common voice to the US. The NSA needs a counterweight. My long-term proposal would therefore be to set up a European Intelligence Service by 2020."

Recent revelations by US leaker Edward Snowden say that America's National Security Agency (NSA) intercepts millions of Europeans' emails and phone calls.

It is also said to spy on 35 world leaders, including bugging German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone.

EU countries' intelligence agencies already co-operate to some extent.

They share classified information on conflicts and terrorist threats in IntCen, a branch of the EU foreign service.

Counter-terrorism specialists also meet in the so-called CP931 working group in the EU Council.

Outside EU structures, member states' intelligence chiefs occasionally meet in what they call the Club de Berne and in a Club de Berne offshoot, the Counter Terrorism Group.

In terms of the EU's own intelligence gathering, IntCen sometimes sends staff to non-EU countries on research trips. But they do it with the agreement of the host country.

The EU foreign service gets updates from its 13 civilian and military crisis missions, such as the Eulex police force in Kosovo or its border mission in Georgia.

It also has 40-or-so Regional Security Officers, who file reports from EU embassies in risky places, such as Lebanon or Libya, and it is test-running a scheme to hire EU countries' security experts as military attaches in a handful of delegations.

None of this is comparable to an offensive foreign intelligence agency, such as the UK's MI6 or France's DGSE, however.

An EU official told EUobserver that Reding has not discussed the idea with her fellow commissioners because she was speaking off the cuff when asked by Naftemporiki on what the EU should do about the NSA.

The official noted that creating a European Intelligence Service would require an EU treaty change and that Reding's notion, if it is taken up, would have to be dealt with after the EU elections in 2014.

The last time the idea came up was in 2004.

Austria and Belgium at the time suggested creating an EU intelligence service in reaction to the Madrid train bombings, which killed almost 200 people.

Their proposal fell on deaf ears in France, Germany and the UK.

Austria still has an appetite for the project.

"It is time to ask ourselves this question: 'Is it realistic to start thinking about a future EU intelligence service?' I think it's realistic to start thinking about it," it's counter-terrorism chief, Peter Gridling, told the European Parliament at a hearing in 2011.

But there is no indication that large EU states are any more keen now than they were 10 years ago.