According to de Vries, "a great many attacks have been prevented" due to the improvements in European defences against terrorism in recent years following the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.
"One of the most interesting developments is the improvement in domestic coordination between national intelligence services, national police, customs offices and other agencies involved in law enforcement", de Vries said in a speech at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels on 10 September.
He outlined that the main role in the fight against terrorism must be reserved for EU member states, though "what the Union can do is help the national authorities across borders".
According to de Vries, one of the most important measures undertaken was the peer review into the organisation of national coordinating structures. In response, Belgium set up a 'National Centre for Threat Assessment'.
Having served three years as the EU's counter-terrorism coordinator – the post is still vacant since de Vries left in March – he was pleased with the improved coordination between the Council, the Commission and the other agencies involved in law-enforcement - namely Europol, Eurojust and Frontex.
De Vries also lauded the establishment of a group of experts on external terrorism from the public and the private sector - set to be announced by the Commission on 12 September - as an additional step in combating the threat. Although the group will not be an official advisory body to the Commission, it shall "discuss the best modern technologies and research" to address security concerns, he said.
Concerning new trends in terrorism, de Vries highlighted the phenomenon of home-grown terrorism - made evident just recently in the plots and planned plots in England and Germany - and the rise of the internet "as a vehicle for the distribution of propaganda".
As a means of countering this rising threat, Europol initiated its surveillance project "Check the Web" this year, which is meant to monitor and analyse the activities of Islamic terror groups on the internet.
De Vries concluded his speech by saying that Bin Laden's "message has not been delivered" - and that his thesis that democracy and Islam are incompatible has been disproved. "Al-Qaeda failed to meet some of its main objectives", he said - first and foremost to topple Western-friendly regimes in Islamic countries, as in Indonesia or Pakistan.
But he added that these achievements could not hide the fact that "the threat has not diminished" and "the struggle for hearts and minds has not been won".
