Spanish espionage the latest player to enter the Brexit debate
New doubts emerge over the cooperation between the UK and European countries in security matters
- Will Europe be more vulnerable to attack if Britain leaves the European Union?
- Sir John Sawers, former Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service in the Uk, believes security would be weakened
Updated : 16:12
On a BBC programme last month, the editor of The Spectator, a traditional weekly magazine, said that security cooperation between European Union countries was not fit for purpose, among other reasons, because the intelligence service in Spain was "a mess".
Some minutes after, the interview turned to Sir John Sawers, former chief of Secret Intelligence Service MI6 from 2009 to 2014. Sawers came out in defence of his Spanish colleagues. "Contrary to what has been said, they are very, very good," he said.
"Contrary to what has been said, they are very, very good"
National security is another controversial topic in the battle of ideas that is being fought ahead of the EU referendum on the 23rd June. Similar to the issues of sovereignty, economy and immigration, it's practically impossible for a voter to distinguish between who is telling the truth and who is not.
Sawers, who will vote in favour of remaining within the EU, found a weapon to support the argument that his country is better defended from inside the EU, in none other than the Spanish Centro Nacional de Inteligencia.
The ex boss of British espionage repeated what had occupied the front page of The Sunday Times: the agility and speed with which the intelligence services exchange information makes the continent, including the UK, safer.
"Leaving the EU would put us in more danger," Sawers feared.
Leaving the EU would put us in more danger
Although Sawers does have the support of many major figures, current Justice minister in the UK Michael Gove has remarked that he is "completely mistaken." He believes that the role played by the EU justice system has led the British secret services to lose agility.
During an interview with Spanish daily El País, Sawers rejected the idea put forward by his predecessor in MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, who had said that "Europe would lose, not Britain, if Brexit were to occur."
Speaking about his Spanish former colleagues, he said that "at an operational level, the Spanish and British intelligence services have a great mutual respect. Both share decades of experience combating terrorism, which means they have special abilities and a great resilience when confronting the current threat of Islamic terrorism."