EU officials warned of increasing espionage

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
British newspaper The Daily Telegraph has leaked an internal European Union (EU) memorandum, warning EU officials that “the threat of espionage is increasing day by day”. The memorandum, authored last December by the European Commission’s Director of Security, Stephen Hutchins, notes that an increasing number of “countries […] lobbyists, journalists [and] private agencies […] are continuing to seek sensitive and classified information” in Brussels. Commenting on the confidential memorandum, a European Commission spokesperson hinted that many of these entities use presentable female interns as agents, who often employ sexual attraction as a means of extracting classified information from EU officials. Several hundred interns descend on the Berlaymont –EU’s headquarters in Brussels– every year, most of whom are under the age of 25. Skeptics suggest that “the idea of glamorous female spies might be more about male fantasy than reality”. But the EU Security Director’s warning was seconded in early February by Alain Winants, Director of Belgium’s State Security Service (SV/SE). Mr. Winants said his agents required expanded investigative powers to combat the increasing presence of foreign spies in the country, many of whom operate under journalistic cover around the EU’s headquarters.