Gijs De Vries Quotes

#1. I remain optimistic. What we've seen in Europe and the rest of the world is that freedom has a much stronger attraction than radical fundamentalism.

Gijs De Vries

#2. Terrorists have failed in what is arguably al Qaida's most important objective - to trigger revolutions.

Gijs De Vries

#3. We still lack a global definition of terrorism.

Gijs De Vries

#4. Muslim organisations tend to have a low level of organisation. The communities in Europe are quite diverse.

Gijs De Vries

#5. Ultimately, freedom and democracy are stronger than fear and tyranny.

Gijs De Vries

#6. It's important that we work very closely with moderate Muslim forces locally, nationally and internationally.

Gijs De Vries

#7. We remain vulnerable. There is no such thing as 100 percent security against terrorism.

Gijs De Vries

#8. We have an integrated picture of the threat from outside and from within that is provided not only to our foreign ministers but also to our justice and interior ministers.

Gijs De Vries

#9. If you combat an international phenomenon, it is indispensable to share information internationally.

Gijs De Vries

#10. In the fight against terrorism, national agencies keep full control over their police forces, security and intelligence agencies and judicial authorities.

Gijs De Vries

#11. Look at Iraq; look at Afghanistan, where at great personal physical risk people have gone to the polls and have rejected the appeal from Bin Laden and his allies to stay at home.

Gijs De Vries

#12. Europe has a long and tragic history of mostly domestic terrorism.

Gijs De Vries

#13. There are no automatic links between poverty and terrorism. Among millions of poor people in the world, only a few turn to terrorism.

Gijs De Vries

#14. There is a series of sectors which could be severely disrupted by terrorist attacks, particularly if they were to happen in several member states simultaneously.

Gijs De Vries

#15. I have never come across a technology that doesn't change. This is inevitable. You have to adapt your systems as technology develops.

Gijs De Vries

#16. If information ends up in the wrong hands, the lives of people very often are immediately at risk.

Gijs De Vries

#17. In situations of military conflict, civil strife, lawlessness, bad governance, and human rights violations, terrorists find it easier to hide, train and prepare their attacks.

Gijs De Vries

#18. The violent radicals do not legitimately represent the overwhelming majority of the world's Muslims.

Gijs De Vries

#19. Terrorists always have the advantage of surprise.

Gijs De Vries

#20. Indiscriminate attacks on civilians ought, under all circumstances, to be illegal in war as in peacetime.

Gijs De Vries

#21. In intelligence work, there are limits to the amount of information one can share. Confidentiality is essential.

Gijs De Vries

#22. Terrorists have failed to trigger mass conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe. We should draw strength from that fact.

Gijs De Vries

#23. Our strategy should be to strengthen the hand of moderate Muslims.

Gijs De Vries

#24. The European Borders Agency in Warsaw has been created to help border forces in Europe cooperate more.

Gijs De Vries

#25. The central role in the fight against terrorism is with national authorities.

Gijs De Vries

#26. The key to tackling Islamist fundamentalism and terrorism from the Islamist community is in the hands of moderate Muslims.

Gijs De Vries

#27. We are familiar with terrorism. But indiscriminate, cross-border, religiously motivated terrorism is new.

Gijs De Vries

#28. Police forces collect information to be used in a public court to get people convicted. Security services gather information that does not necessarily lead to people being prosecuted and in many cases needs to remain confidential.

Gijs De Vries

#29. We're still stymied by the old stand-off between those who wish to fight terrorism and resistance fighters.

Gijs De Vries

#30. The majority of the world's Muslims do not believe that terrorism is a legitimate strategy or that Islam is incompatible with democracy.

Gijs De Vries

#31. If you exchange information internationally, you must strengthen data protection. Those are two sides of the same coin.

Gijs De Vries

#32. The idea is to have global standards. There is so much travel that if you just had a regional standard, it would probably ultimately have to be changed.

Gijs De Vries

#33. You can't get closer to the heart of national sovereignty than national security and intelligence services.

Gijs De Vries