Gilles de Kerchove, the EU's Counter-terrorism Co-ordinator, has said that attacks like those perpetrated on 9/11 are no longer possible. De Kerchove was speaking as the world prepares to mark the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States.
In recent years the Belgian has played a crucial role in the fight against terrorism in Europe. At a news conference in Brussels on Monday he attempted to draw up an inventory of European attempts to combat terrorism. De Kerchove's message was an optimistic one. The EU's Counter-terrorism Coordinator believes that attacks on the scale and of the sophistication of those committed on 9 September 2001 are probably no longer feasible.

He pointed to the far-reaching co-operation between police forces and the judicial authorities, not only in Europe, but across the globe. The Counter-terrorism Co-ordinator believes that the world has become a safer place. Terrorism motivated by fundamentalist Islam may be on the wane, De Kerchove warned that the terrorist threat should not be underestimated: "Terrorism has many faces. Witness the recent attacks in Norway."