&nbsp;Meeting of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) on the Security dialogue, in the EP in Brussels. Exchange of views with Julian KING, Member of the EC in charge of the Security Union, Roberta METSOLA (EPP, MT), Birgit SIPPEL (S&amp;D, DE), Judith SARGENTINI (Greens/EFA, NL) and Sophia IN'T VELD (ALDE, NL).&nbsp;And&nbsp;statement on the London terrorist attack (22/03/2017).

Brussels

exchange of views

meeting

Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

fight against terrorism (T)

KING, Julian (UK, EC)

SIPPEL, Birgit (S&D, DE)

EU Internal Security Strategy (T)

SARGENTINI, Judith (Greens/EFA, NL)

IN 'T VELD, Sophia (Renew, NL)

Exchange of views with Julian KING, Member of the EC in charge of the Security Union: statement on the London terrorist attack (22/03/2017) and extracts from the first LIBE Security dialogue

Exterior view of wit the UK and European flags at half-mast at the European Parliament .

SOUNDBITE (English), Julian KING, Member of the EC in charge of the Security Union, I think I&rsquo;m speaking for all of us when I say that yesterday&rsquo;s attacks on pedestrians crossing a bridge in London, Westminster bridge, and then the Palace of Westminster, leaves us shocked, and obviously our thoughts go to all the victims. I don&rsquo;t think it was a complete accident that this attack took place on the 1st anniversary of the Brussels attacks, when here in the Belgian capital we were solemnly recalling the murders of 32 people and the wounding in many cases with life changing consequences of many more.

The methodology of the London attacker fits in to a paten of behaviour which we have seen before, which we witnessed in Nice, last year on France&rsquo;s National Day, and again in Berlin, shortly before Christmas. With the transformation of a vehicle, an everyday object, into a weapon against the softest of targets, people like us, going about their daily lives, posing no threat to anybody.

What we already knew before this latest attack is that the terrorist threat remains extremely high across Europe, an attack which finished at the UK Parliament is an attack on our democracy and I think that is felt and shared understanding right across the European Union. Those who carried out these attacks want to target our way of life, target our values but we are not gonna let them win. That&rsquo;s why I believe that France was right to go ahead with the Euro 2016 championships last summer, even after the attacks in Paris and in Nice and I think it was right that the decision in December of the German authorities to keep their Christmas markets open or be it with extra security measures.

There is not going to be 100% security, there is never going to be zero risk but we can and will continue to make further attacks as difficult and therefore unlikely as we can. I do believe that we are making progress in that effort, our collective shared efforts to bear down on the space in which terrorists and others who wish to do us harm operate and our shared efforts to build our resilience, but we need to keep going and what we are discussing today is one aspect of that continued work.

SOUNDBITE (English), Roberta METSOLA (EPP, MT), These attacks happened on the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks in Brussels. We can never be too aware of how much of a threat terrorism still remains in our cities, in our countries and it is really important also for our groups that we continue to call on the Commission to continue with its efforts in this area and keep security in the EU at the very top of its agenda.

SOUNDBITE (English), Birgit SIPPEL (S&amp;D, DE), I am getting more and more confused and a little bit irritated always listening to nice words that we have to close information gaps, that we have them very fast, and that&rsquo;s why we don&rsquo;t have time for impact assessments. If I look back to the very first attacks we have seen in Brussels I do remember that one of the problems that we didn&rsquo;t find out a little bit earlier at least about some of the offenders was that the CIS system was not efficiently used. You just describe that the PRIM decision should have been implemented in 2011 still some member states are not doing it and the infringement procedures started in 2016.

SOUNDBITE (English), Judith SARGENTINI (Greens/EFA, NL), In your progress report which I really found interesting to read you highlight de-radicalisation, how to deal with returning Jihadism, how to deal with soft targets and you show that we have to deal with security threats from the inside. Which I continue to underline that we need to put our efforts in seeing, predicting and preventing security threats from inside whereas the proposals that are on the table and the data bases that are being expanded and interconnected very much focus on the security threat from outside.

SOUNDBITE (English), Sophia IN&apos;T VELD (ALDE, NL), If we look for example into yesterday&rsquo;s attack the guy was born in the UK and he was known to MI5. He was known to be a radicalised extremist or whatever you call them. So how did that help us? It didn&rsquo;t and every single attack that took place on EU soil since 9/11 and included the attacks of 9/11 themselves, we knew the perpetrators beforehand and every time like a (...) reflex what we do is that we are calling for more data collection. The point is how with all the information we had on this person yesterday, how were we going to spot that individual and know that one day he will wake up, get into his car, take a knife and do what he did yesterday.

Just an hour ago, half an hour ago apparently there was another wicker who went into his car and drove down the main street in Antwerp at high speed. Maybe he was just a bad driver or maybe he was a terrorist we don&rsquo;t know but copycats, how do you know? We can collect, we can chip every single person of the face of this Earth but these people we are not going to spot. So we are having an information gap, we need something else.