Gilles De Kerchove, the EU’s counter-terrorism coordinator, argued cross-border operations would continue long after Brexit as “intelligence sharing develops outside the EU’s framework”, like reported by express.co.uk.
In February, a committee of MPs was told by Sir Julian King, the EU’s security commissioner, there would be “practical limits” on sharing crime-fighting information, even if withdrawal negotiations go well.
The claim has been rubbished by Mr Kerchove, who told France 24 he expects no change in the way Europe shares intelligence after divorce talks are completed.
He said: “The relationship between the security services and the intelligence services is organised in a different setting outside the EU framework.
“In that respect, Brexit won’t have a major impact.”
Upon trigger Article 50 last week, Theresa May said she would seek to maintain security cooperation with the EU.
Asked whether the UK would remain a member of Europol, the bloc’s law enforcement agency, the Prime Minister told the BBC: “I think security co-operation in a number of crime and justice matters is important for us.
“It’s not just Europol, there are some other things, there are systems about exchanging information about people crossing borders, for example, which I think are valuable, valuable to us, and valuable to the other countries in the EU.
“I would like to be able to maintain the degree of co-operation on these matters that we have currently.”
Mr Kerchove reiterated Mrs May’s stance, as he continued: “On this, the only thing I can say is the United Kingdom will be in the same position as the United States, Turkey or Tunisia.
“We have operational agreements with third states, so I believe we will have, very quickly, an operational agreement between the Metropolitan Police and Europol.”
The Prime Minster faced allegations of “blackmail” by top EU figures after her six-page Article 50 letter mentioned security 11 times on Wednesday last week.
She told the Brussels club failure to reach a deal “would mean our co-operation in the fight against crime and terrorism would be weakened”.
Guy Verhofstadt, the EU Parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator, said the “threat” was unacceptable, adding it would be “big mistake” to start launching security threats at each other.
