INTCEN

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European UnionEuropean Union EU Intelligence Analysis Center
- EU INTCEN -
Position of the authority unofficially
Consist since January 1, 2003
Headquarters Brussels, Avenue Cortenbergh (Kortenberglaan)
Authority management José Casimiro Morgado
Employee 70

EU Intelligence Analysis Center - EU INTCEN (before March 2012 Joint Situation Center, SitCen or JSC ) is an organ of the European External Action Service of the European Union and, in addition to the Satellite Center of the European Union and the Intelligence Division, has intelligence tasks.

The body is of particular importance in the mediation and networking of non-EU countries and the EU through the Bern Club . This plays a special role, in which the interests of Europe are coordinated with the INTCEN in order to connect the secret services of all European states or to exchange information loosely. At least the INTCEN was created in the "dark" and cannot rely on any legal basis. In contrast to other intelligence services, Parliament, in this case the European Parliament , is not involved and has no right of inspection.

National parliaments also have no access rights, as the authority is regarded as an unofficial EU body. With the establishment of the European External Action Service through the Treaty of Lisbon , the authority is considered legitimate. The merger of INTCEN with two other units will upgrade the organ as a European secret service , although the function of analyzing combined data from external sources is more similar to a fusion center .

tasks

The tasks of INTCEN are controversial in the EU, it is assumed that INTCEN can not determine and research information itself and is dependent on the cooperation of the member states for these purposes. According to the Wirtschaftswoche from December 2010, active espionage is explicitly excluded. This was confirmed again by the then head, Ilkka Salmi , in an interview in March 2014.

A parliamentary question put in 2013 by the Austrian EU parliamentarian Martin Ehrenhauser was essentially answered as follows by Catherine Ashton , the first representative of the EU for foreign and security policy and thus the host of INTCEN on June 27, 2013:

  • The task of INTCEN is the creation of intelligence evaluations using all sources of information.
  • The recipients of the information were determined by the topic and the affected territories.
  • The products are classified - depending on the level of confidentiality of the underlying documents - from "Limited" to "EU TOP SECRET".
  • The EU-INTCEN receives information from departments of the EU Council, the EU Commission and the European External Action Service of the EU delegations.
  • The intelligence services of the member countries "would be expected to provide information".
  • INTCEN is integrated into the Single Intelligence Analysis Capacity (SIAC), with which the civil intelligence capacities cooperate through INTCEN and the military intelligence capacities through the intelligence services of the military staff (EUMS INT DIR).

In the invitation to tender for the position of Director 2015 after the departure of Ilkka Salmi, the EU Human Resources Administration names the following mission objectives:

INTCEN is the civil intelligence organization of the EU. Its mission is to provide intelligence analysis, early warning and situation reports for the High Representative and the European External Action Service. INTCEN fulfills its mandate by monitoring and assessing international incidents with a focus on specific regions, terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and other global threats. The intelligence products are based on findings from the intelligence services of EU member states and publicly accessible sources. INTCEN also offers its services to other EU decision-making bodies in the field of common foreign and security policy, common security and defense policy and counter-terrorism in the member states.

organization

The origins of the authority go back to 1999 when an information point for the analysis of freely available sources of information was set up with the Common Security and Defense Policy of the EU under the leadership of Javier Solana . In addition, a Counter Terrorism Group (CTG) was set up after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 . In the beginning, INTCEN was mainly used to exchange intelligence information between German, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish and British services.

Since the Madrid train attacks in March 2004, INTCEN has also been involved in EU internal security and counter-terrorism.

With the establishment of the European External Action Service on December 1, 2010, INTCEN is also considered to have been founded.

With effect from March 2012, the name was changed from Joint Situation Center (JSC, SitCen) to EU Intelligence Analysis Center (INTCEN) .

There are two departments:

  • A1 - Evaluation ( Analysis ) under the direction of José Miguel Palacios Coronell (Spain)
  • A2 - General and External Relations under the direction of József Molnár (Hungary)

In 2016, the establishment of the Hybrid Fusion Cell was announced, which is tasked with defending against “hybrid threats”, although these are only vaguely defined. The definition for the European Union is referred to as "irregular ways of fighting" by state and non-state actors associated with "terrorist actions and criminal behavior" and cites the annexation of Crimea as an example as a result of the Crimean crisis .

Location and staff

INTCEN operates a situation and analysis center at the headquarters of the Council of the European Union in Brussels and at the European Union military staff .

The founding director was the former British diplomat William Shapcott, who headed INTCEN from 2001 to 2010. In December 2010 he was replaced by Ilkka Salmi , the former director of the Finnish Security Service ( Suojelupoliisi ), who had prevailed in a tendering process. At the beginning of 2016, the German Federal Intelligence Service official Gerhard Conrad took over the management of the center, which he held until August 31, 2019. His successor was the Portuguese José Casimiro Morgado .

INTCEN consists of more than 110 employees and deals with the analysis and evaluation of information. About 70% of this staff are members of the members' intelligence organizations. The rest are administrative staff of the EU. In an interview in March 2014, the then head of INTCEN spoke of 70 employees, 30 of whom were assigned to work at INTCEN by national secret services.

Data sources

INTCEN receives the data from freely accessible public sources, such as press agencies and the press itself ( Open Source Intelligence ). In addition, various services of the EU member states, Switzerland and Norway pass on information to INTCEN. The Federal Intelligence Service delivers doing only the necessary notes of the lowest confidentiality level " official use ". Nonetheless, government officials believe that the European Information Coordination Authority is useful. EU INTCEN and the European Union Military Staff (EUMS) are part of the Single Intelligence Analysis Capacity (SIAC) , which brings together civil (EU INTCEN) and military intelligence services (EUMS). In addition to these services, the EU border control authority Frontex in Warsaw and Europol in The Hague also provide information to INTCEN.

As a result of the increased number of European Union delegations that were set up in 2009 , the secret service is now more independent and, thanks to the reports by the EU embassies, it also enjoys its own sources for evaluating material.

In addition to satellite images from the United States of America , INTCEN has data from various EU member states available, including the German SAR-Lupe , the Italian COSMO-Skymed and the French systems Helios and Pléiades . Data from the satellite center of the European Union are also available to INTCEN.

Structures

The INTCEN is divided into three areas:

  • Operations - 24/7 crisis monitoring and information to the diplomats of the member countries.
  • Analysis - merging and evaluating the collected data.
  • Communication and Consulate Services - Operation of COREU

Products

From the 24-hour news monitoring, INTCEN produces a daily news overview and informs affected personnel in the event of special incidents. According to official information, the volume is given as approx. 200 strategic situation reports and 50 special reports or briefings. According to the journalist Matthias Monroy, who is close to Statewatch , this number had already doubled at the beginning of 2013. In an interview with the Belgian Mondiaal Nieuws , Ilkka Salmi mentions the number of 500 reports per year.

INTCEN creates regional or thematically focused analyzes as well as order analyzes on current topics, in particular information and analyzes in crisis management are provided. In addition to these special analyzes, regular reports are also created:

  • INTCEN produces reports that are made available through the EU Political and Security Committee .
    • Intelligence assessments: six monthly reports for specific hotspots.
    • Intelligence Report: Weekly news summary.
    • Morning highlight: Daily news overview.
  • INTCEN organizes the regular exchange of information between the participating services of the different nations, the common security and defense policy and initiates direct measures within the framework of this policy.
  • INTCEN operates the COREU system (French: Correspondance Européenne = European correspondence), with which European states conduct their non-public communications. The network for communication with EU missions outside Europe is also operated.

In addition, Personal INTCEN accompanies EU officials as security personnel on trips. There is no official regulation as to when the reports can be made available to the public. Salmi justifies this with the national legislation of the information-providing member states.

Secrecy levels

In response to the direct question of which levels of confidentiality are used by INTCEN, Director Salmi said:

  • LIMITED - lowest unprotected information
  • EU RESTRICTED
  • EU CONFIDENTIAL
  • EU SECRET
  • EU TOP SECRET - information from a primary source that, according to Salmi, does not occur at INTCEN due to a lack of operational staff.

activities

According to information from the EUobservers in April 2011, persons paid directly by INTCEN were sent on a mission in Libya . Director Salmi officially named the people's expertise with satellite telephones and similar topics as the occasion. A search for information was not the goal of the trips.

criticism

INTCEN has been criticized by member states for the poor quality of the reports. It is also evident that different countries with a history of cooperation in the field of intelligence exchange information more efficiently informally than through INTCEN.

When Statewatch was founded , Tony Bunyan, founder of Statewatch , expressed concern that the Commission was seeking “unfettered powers” to establish a surveillance state and to spy on citizens' privacy under the pretext of protecting them.

The European Parliament repeatedly criticized the fact that it had no control over SitCen. This representation is contradicted by INTCEN officials, since the members of parliament already have control over the European external service. The discussion was re-fueled by the revelations of whistleblower Edward Snowden . At the beginning of 2014, the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs sent the Commission a paper which should enable workable proposals for an effective supervision of the Parliament over the INTCEN.

history

The Joint Situation Center (SITCEN) was formed in 2002 and set up on January 1, 2003 by the Policy Planning Unit (PU ) to support the PU with intelligence and security policy analyzes. Shortly afterwards, intelligence analysts from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK began analyzing data together. The service leader during this period was the British professional diplomat William Shapecott.

According to the Dutch analyst Jelle van Buuren from Stichting Eurowatch, the initiative did not come from the Commission, but from Javier Solana. Nevertheless, there is no formal founding document with a mission or agenda. In response to requests, the Commission informs that SITCEN was established as part of the General Secretariat and within the framework of the autonomy of this organization and does not require any further legitimation.

In 2005 INTCEN's capabilities were expanded by teams of counter-terrorism experts. INTCEN henceforth supplied the council with analyzes of terrorist threat situations. In 2007, cooperation with the European military staff was strengthened, which, according to the company, resulted in a Single Intelligence Analysis Capacity (SIAC).

With the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty , INTCEN was placed under the control of the High Representative.

On December 1, 2010, SITCEN was assigned to the Common Foreign and Security Policy and thus to the EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy . The "Secret Service of the European Union" was therefore directly subordinate to the European Commission, because Lady Ashton was the first Vice-President of the Commission. This decision also does not communicate the mission, tasks and functions of INTCEN, but only transfers the functions en bloc to the CFSP. In 2011 INTCEN was integrated into the administrative apparatus of the European External Action Service. After changes in the administrative structure of the EEAS, the leadership changed to the former head of the Finnish secret service, Ilkka Salmi. In 2012 the name of SITCEN was changed to INTCEN.

At the end of 2015 it was surprisingly announced that Salmi was taking on a new role as Director of Security for the European Commission within the EU administration. His successor in the management of INTCEN was the German BND employee Gerhard Conrad. The appointment is seen as an indicator of a strengthening of the service and an expansion of powers and responsibilities.

literature

  • Mai'a K. Davis Cross: A European Transgovernmental Intelligence Network and the Role of IntCen. In: Perspectives on European Politics and Society Vol. 14 Issue 3 from September 2013, pp. 388–402
  • Christian Kaunert, Sarah Leonard, John Occhipinti (Eds.): Justice and Home Affairs Institutions in the European Union. Routledge, Abingdon and New York 2015, ISBN 978-1-138-77955-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Christian Mölling (2009) Military Crisis Management within European Security and Defense Policy - Structures, Actors and Processes for Planning and Decision-Making , Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p report ( memento of the original dated September 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. the Cross-border Research Association (CBRA - BMT, Ave d ́Echallens 74, CH-1004 Lausanne); accessed on March 4, 2014.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.focusproject.eu
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Kristof Clerix, Ilkka Salmi, the EU's spymaster , Mondiaal Nieuws from March 14, 2014; accessed on July 14, 2015.
  4. ↑ a b Top secret service agent Gerhard Conrad is retiring. In: https://www.handelsblatt.com/ . Handelsblatt , accessed on September 2, 2019 .
  5. ↑ a b Announcement by the speaker Ilkka Salmi ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the website of the Institute of International and European Affairs, accessed on March 4, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.iiea.com
  6. ^ Joint Situation Center (JSC) ( Memento June 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk
  7. ↑ Mai'a K. Davis Cross: EU Intelligence Sharing & The Joint Situation Center: A Glass Half-Full ( Memento from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) euce.org, pdf, accessed on September 6, 2012
  8. ^ Ehrenhauser secret service Martin Ehrenhauser
  9. ↑ European Parliament Written Question E-006027/2012
  10. ↑ a b Silke Wettach (2010) Finne heads the preliminary stage to the EU secret service , Wirtschaftswoche from December 20, 2010; accessed on March 4, 2014.
  11. ^ Answer by Catherine Ashton to Parliamentary Questions E-006018/12, E-006020/12 on the website of the European Parliament (www.europarl.europa.eu).
  12. ↑ Job advertisement for the Director of the EU Intelligence and Situation Center (INTCEN) (EEAS Vacancy Notice 2015 / 57HQ (AD) Director) on the website of the European External Action Service; Retrieved on July 7, 2016. The original translated passage reads as follows:

    The INTCEN is the civilian intelligence function of the EU. Its mission is to provide intelligence analyzes, early warning and situational awareness to the High Representative and to the EEAS. The INTCEN does this by monitoring and assessing international events, focusing particularly on sensitive geographical areas, terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and other global threats. Its analytical products are based on intelligence provided by EU Member States' intelligence and security services as well as open sources.

    The INTCEN also offers its services to the various EU decision making bodies in the fields of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) and Counter Terrorism, as well as to the Member States.

  13. ↑ a b c dpa / dpaweb; European CIA ; January 16, 2011; accessed on March 4, 2014.
  14. ↑ The official directory of the European Union, European External Action Service - EN 24/03/2014 ; accessed on March 26, 2014.
  15. ↑ a b Matthias Monroy (2016) “Hybrid Threats”: EU calls for civil-military armament and measures to control the Internet ; www.netzpolitik.org from April 7, 2016; accessed on August 22, 2016.
  16. ↑ Mai'a K. Davis Cross: A European Trans Governmental Intelligence Network and the Role of EU Intelligence and Situation Center. In: Perspectives on European Politics and Society Vol. 14 Issue 3 from September 2013, pp. 388–402, here p. 392 (English)
  17. ^ Announcement about the replacement of Ilkka Salmi by Gerhard Conrad in Movers and Shakers , column in The Parliament Magazine of December 14, 2015.
  18. ↑ Top German spy coordinates EU secret services: Mr. Hezbollah on a new mission. In: Spiegel Online of December 11, 2015, accessed on February 14, 2016
  19. ↑ When secret service bosses talk sensitively about data protection. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of February 12, 2016
  20. ↑ Most sensitive EU organ ; ORF September 2010 , accessed on April 2, 2011
  21. ^ Developing an Intelligence Capability- the EU @ cia.gov, accessed April 2, 2011
  22. ↑ EU wants its own spies, courier ( Memento from April 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  23. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Andrew Rettman, EU intelligence bureau sent officers to Libya , EU Observer of April 12, 2011.
  24. ↑ a b c Answer of 16 August 2012 by Mrs Catherine Ashton - High Representative / Vice-President on behalf of the Commission to Parliamentary Questions E-006018/12, E-006020/12; Retrieved April 7, 2014.
  25. ^ Silke Wettach and Henning Krumrey, European CIA ; Wirtschaftswoche from September 23, 2010; accessed on March 4, 2014.
  26. ^ Matthias Monroy; EUMS INT and INTCEN: The secret services of the European Union ; Netzpolitik.org of October 1, 2013.
  27. ^ A b Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones (2013) In Spies We Trust: The Story of Western Intelligence ; Oxford University Press; Oxford.
  28. ↑ a b c d e f EUINTCEN factsheet on the website of the European External Action Service; accessed on September 13, 2016.
  29. ↑ a b c d e f g Chris Jones (2013) Secrecy reigns at the EU's Intelligence Analysis Center ; on the website of www.Statewatch.org.
  30. ^ Opening speech by President Dr. Hans-Georg Maaßen at the 13th BfV symposium on May 2, 2016 in Berlin; Dimension and scenarios of Islamist terrorism in Germany and Europe .
  31. ↑ EU Who's Who, Dir DS Sicherheit , accessed on March 14, 2016.
  32. ↑ a b Justin Huggler (2015) Germany's 'Mr Hizbollah' to head up EU's joint intelligence operation in The Telegraph of December 11, 2015.
  33. ↑ Matthias Gebauer (2015) German top spy coordinates EU secret services: Mr. Hezbollah on a new mission ; on www.spiegel.de from December 11, 2015.
  34. ^ German spy who negotiated with Israel's foes to head EU intel agency in The Times of Israel of December 12, 2015.