Pro-independence MEP says experts will 'contrast' information in Europol report on terrorism

Catalan pro-independence MEP Diana Riba says that Europol will modify their protocol on drawing up reports on terrorism in the EU to "contrast" the information provided by member states.

After several meetings at Europol headquarters, including with its director, Catherine De Bolle, the Esquerra Republicana politician Riba has told the Catalan News Agency in The Hague that one of the measures the European police agency wants to introduce is for a group of experts on terrorism to act as "filter" for the information sent by countries.

The change in methodology prepared by Europol comes after the 2023 report mentioned the Catalan and Basque independence movements. 

Riba said she was "satisfied" with the meetings held at Europol HQ and pointed out that there will be "different levels of complexity" in the new methodology. Reports will have to be backed up with "facts, judicial rulings, and concrete actions," she explained 

Controversy with the report on terrorism

Riba's meetings at Europol had the aim of discussing methodology with EU security officials after the 'European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2023' report.

At first, this Europol report considered the Catalan and Basque independence movements as the "most active and violent" in Spain. Subsequently, the agency updated the document but kept mentions of the pro-independence camps in the section on extremism.

After Riba spoke in the European Parliament's Freedom Committee in June, the executive director of Europol, Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, justified the consideration of Catalan and Basque independence movements on the fact that it is member states who notifies the security agency of the data. "We don't have to qualify the facts," argued Lecouffe.

After the report was published, Riba called for a meeting with Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders and the director of Europol to address her "concern" that the document "criminalized a legitimate and peaceful political movement."

After this, the Greens group, of which ERC and Riba are a part, asked the European Parliament's Europol scrutiny group to modify the report's methodology.

Apart from the director of Europol, the ERC MEP also met with Lecouffe, the head of department of the European Cybercrime Centre, Edvardas Sileris, the head of the analysis and strategy coordination unit, Tamara Madeleine Schotte, the head of unit of the European Center for Migrant Trafficking, Seweryn Stopa, and Edoardo Boggio Marzet, from the agency's office in Brussels.