European Commissioner for Migration and Home Affairs Dimitris Avramopoulos | Olivier Hoslet/EPA Commissioner calls for European intelligence system Dimitris Avramopoulos says if there had been better coordination, recent terror attacks in Europe may have been prevented.

European Commissioner for Home Affairs Dimitris Avramopoulos said Monday that cooperation among security and intelligence services needed to be “stepped up significantly” across Europe.

“I wonder … if it is finally the time to be ambitious and bold, to overcome the security taboos of the past and finally work in order to build a European intelligence system,” Avramopoulos said, adding that he knew some member countries might not agree with this idea.

Avramopoulos, who was speaking before the European Parliament's Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, argued that had there been better coordination, terror attacks like those in Spain and Finland could have been averted.

“If there was cooperation, information sharing and exchanging, maybe some of these tragic events could have been predicted and prevented. But let’s make one more political remark, I’m afraid that the deep state still resists.”

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