"European intelligence services should learn more from their colleagues in Eastern Europe"

The balance between the needs of the secret services and the protection of fundamental rights in liberal democracies is the great challenge facing European intelligence. Anticipation with a new approach, when focusing on Russia, would have minimised mistakes. This is how Konstantin Kuhle, member of the German Bundestag, vice-president of the FDP parliamentary group and spokesman for German domestic policy, began an interview with this correspondent at the headquarters of the American university Schiller International in Madrid.

Prior to the start of a round table discussion under the title: "Intelligence services in Europe", inaugurated by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF), with the support of Edmundo Bal (spokesperson for Ciudadanos in the Committee on Official Secrets of the Lower House) and Fernando Maura (director of the forum Libertas, Veritas et Legalitas), Elías Kuhle met with ATALAYAR to highlight the need and professionalism of the intelligence services for essential reasons, such as the war in Ukraine and Russia's attempts to destabilise Europe, given that the European security order suffers from an obsolete narrative.

On your trip to Spain, through this meeting with experts from the UNED, Spanish political groups and members of the Armed Forces of Special Missions, what message do you want to convey?

In the Western context, we must assimilate the fact that Russia has already started an asymmetric war prior to the violent attacks against Ukraine. They use different measures to influence Europe's liberal democracies: disinformation, sensitive attacks on critical infrastructure, and exerting influence with large sums of money trying to destabilise EU member states such as France. It is a lethal combination of factors.

Of course, we must always bear in mind threats such as jihadism, the danger of which has not been banished, without forgetting the attrition of the generation of agents (11M in Madrid, for example) who work hard for the security services; the rise of right-wing extremism in Europe, which comes from within Germany; competition between systems and the meteoric pace of China together with the belligerent pressure it exerts on Taiwan's Democracy.

Tell me about the involvement of German intelligence services in collaboration with Ukraine.

I am a member of the Committee that exercises control over the Intelligence Institutions in Germany, I can say that the war has changed the focus of the Intelligence services, which were focused on jihadist terrorism. Now, since the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the secret services have not had a sufficient approach to Russia and we should have listened to what our friends in Poland, Finland and the Baltic countries are telling us. They have been very aware of this threat against Ukraine and it is a big mistake of the intelligence structures that they have not anticipated with new and sufficient approaches towards Russia.

Could you explain to me whether there is regular collaboration between the intelligence services of the European Union and whether the idea of a possible central service of the member states is being considered?

I believe that there is a sincere collaboration based on common values that works. It must be borne in mind that each intelligence service has its own idiosyncrasies, its own history. I notice that in Spain, the foreign and domestic intelligence services are not entirely independent areas, and this is completely different in Germany. A peculiarity, therefore, to share because the structures are different, and although we collaborate together, I think it could be done better.

Accustomed to the secrecy involved in these matters, to allude to the workings of the German secret services in a natural way is a great step forward.

In my contribution to this debate, I would like to emphasise two particularities: on the one hand, the fact that there are three federal intelligence services in Germany, with different competences, and on the other hand, the "sensible separation" between the police and the secret services, "each with its own area of responsibility". The current challenges we are facing at the moment include the revision of the rules of data transmission from one agency to another; how to evaluate the work of the intelligence services; the federal structure of the state and the uniform transfer of information; the reform of legislation at Security level and that of Parliament's auxiliary bodies.

How and when do you foresee the end of this conflict?

It is a new form of conflict and the internet makes us more vulnerable. We are faced with technological and propaganda supremacy and the dizzying speed of this on social networks. Our intelligence services have to equip themselves with greater capabilities to detect these dangers. How? By means of a new understanding that includes competencies that do not exist in today's intelligence services. In Germany, we are increasing our skills in this area by recruiting experts such as legal experts, social media experts, experts with expertise in other spheres of society. And we are learning a lot, as I would like to reiterate, from our colleagues in Eastern Europe, because they are real experts in foresight and have a closer idea of what might happen in the future.