Meeting of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs with Mich&egrave;le CONINSX, President of Eurojust, on Foreign Fighters,&nbsp;in the EP in Brussels. Statements by Mich&egrave;le CONINSX, President of Eurojust, Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Timothy KIRKHOPE (ECR, UK), Nathalie GRIESBECK (ALDE, FR), and Claude MORAES (S&amp;D, UK)

Brussels

exchange of views

meeting

Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

MORAES, Claude (S&D, UK)

fight against terrorism (T)

GRIESBECK, Nathalie (ALDE, FR)

CONINSX, Michèle (BE)

HOHLMEIER, Monika (EPP, DE)

KIRKHOPE, Timothy (ECR, UK)

Eurojust

Foreign fighters: extracts from the exchange of views with Michèle CONINSX, President of Eurojust

SOUNDBITE (English), Mich&#232;le CONINSX, President of Eurojust , It is because of the victims, it is because of the fighting for getting the perpetrators to justice to bring them to justice it is because we also from judicial point of view can help in preventing having terrorist attacks and it is because of the victims that we are so motivated to continue to work so hard in terrorism contest.

SOUNDBITE (English), Mich&#232;le CONINSX, President of Eurojust , If foreign terrorist fighters was a specific national problem and thanks to questionnaire launched after the meeting in 2012 in September, we already discovered in 2012 that not only that country but the top of it six other countries were in fact confronted with people going back and forth from Syria and Iraq and coming back as returnees, sometimes with terrorist intentions.

SOUNDBITE (English), Mich&#232;le CONINSX, President of Eurojust , It is useful to fight foreign terrorist fighters by sending them to jail, but having them convicted because if you send them to prison, the prisons are incubators, are radicalisers for foreign terrorist fighters.

SOUNDBITE (English), Mich&#232;le CONINSX, President of Eurojust , In the aftermath of the Brussels attack we found in the last will of one of the kamikazes, his last sentence in this world : 'I have blown myself up because I do not want to go to jail' there is a deterrent effect but of course we ask for common, comprehensive approach and that means that we have to deal with different sets of dangerousness of foreign terrorist fighters.

SOUNDBITE (English), Mich&#232;le CONINSX, President of Eurojust , The returnees the people going to Syria and Iraq for being involved in the warzones and conflict zones actives come back traumatized and not having terrorist intention. So there is a reason to be very diversified and very nuanced in what you say.

SOUNDBITE (German), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), From your point of view - what I have got from your report - is that is important to many issues that travel is done with terrorist intentions. There is a general misimpression that it has to do with travel as such, but the question is whether it has to do with terroristic network or an actual act?

SOUNDBITE (English), Timothy KIRKHOPE (ECR, UK), It seems that some of you suggestions in the technical standards that actually relate to the exchange of information across the Member States. But that has much more merit, more achievability and that the wider ambition you put there.

SOUNDBITE (French), Nathalie GRIESBECK (ALDE, FR), Concerning the new directive on terrorism what do you think about this proposal what are your remarks or added points?

SOUNDBITE (English), Claude MORAES (S&amp;D, UK), Do you see any match between - in my opinion - the very poor responses by governments, I mean we have even the best ant radicalization measures in countries, Mr . KIRKHOPE knows, The United Kingdom for example is responding with a very well intentioned anti-radicalization measures but they are very poor in the implementation .

SOUNDBITE (English), Mich&#232;le CONINSX, President of Eurojust , We in the European Union have focusing not on the war on terror. This was not our approach and it won't because we are in a rule of law we are in a constitutional state context, we have of course the right to speak, the right to move, the right to do things. And I think that we as prosecutors we have one obligation and that is to strive to the right to live. And if that thin line has been broken we have to act in the bases of the rule of law.

SOUNDBITE (English), Mich&#232;le CONINSX, President of Eurojust , Also in the preventive stage hence recruitment, hence training, hence financing, hence travelling not travelling for tourist purposes, but for terrorist purposes and that means totally different things. You go to Syria not to amuse yourself or to divert yourself but to be involved in terrorist activity: recruiting, training others, inspiring others, killing others, beheading others , taking hostage of journalists, we are now dealing with the coordination effort in Eurojust while we are dealing with journalist have been taken hostage in Syria.

SOUNDBITE (English), Mich&#232;le CONINSX, President of Eurojust , Indeed we may not stigmatized and label the Muslims, there are also Muslims among the victims and they should also being taking care of to be protected and that is the reason why we are doing all this work to take out the victims, to bring the perpetrators to justice, there is indeed a big crises.