TIME: Simple safety measures are still to be implemented, even after two Paris attacks

March 22, 2013

TIME journalist Vivienne Walt asked Yan St-Pierre to comment on Europe’s role in fighting against terrorist threats: “Simple safety measures are still to be implemented, even after two Paris attacks“.

“Even as far back as 9/11, Europol said Europe needed improved intelligence sharing,” Yan St-Pierre, CEO and counter-terrorist advisor for Modern Security Consulting Group in Berlin, said by phone on Tuesday. “Everybody says it, but it never becomes effective until it is too late,” he says. “The culture for sharing is still not far enough to make it efficient.”

In early December, the E.U. Commission—Europe’s governing body in Brussels—issued a directive requiring the 28 countries to share the Passenger Name Record, or PNR, of those traveling around Europe, and to retain passenger information—a proposal E.U. officials had mulled since 2011. After the Paris attacks, officials said PNR sharing was a key measure in safeguarding airplanes and trains against terrorism. Nearly four months later, the idea is no closer to reality, however. Europe’s Court for Human Rights has ruled that the measure would violate passengers’ privacy, while several countries have voiced similar concerns.

“There are delays, and it has not been voted on,” St-Pierre says. “The delays are both the court order, and politics.”

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