The Club de Berne (, , CdB) is an intelligence sharing alliance between the

intelligence services An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives. Means of info ...

of the 27 states of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

(EU),

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

and

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, named after the city of

Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...

. It is an institution based on voluntary exchange of secrets, experience and views as well as discussing problems.“Club de Berne” meeting in Switzerland
Swiss Federal Office of Police (28 April 2004)Rettman, Andrew (31 March 2011
EU commission keen to set up new counter-terrorism office
EU Observer Austria is excluded from the CdB because of its tolerance of espionage that does not target the country itself. The Club has existed since 1971 and has no secretariat and takes no decisions. The Counter Terrorism Group (CTG) is an offshoot of the Club and shares terrorism intelligence. It provides

threat assessment Threat assessment is the practice of determining the credibility and seriousness of a potential threat, as well as the probability that the threat will become a reality. Threat assessment is separate to the more established practice of violence-r ...

s to EU policy makers and provides a form for expert collaboration. The Group was created after

9/11 The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

to further intelligence sharing cooperation between European intelligence structures.European counter terrorism meeting
MI5 The CTG, like the Club, is outside of the EU's institutions but communicates with them via the participation of the EU Intelligence Analysis Centre (EU INTCEN), a branch of the

European External Action Service The European External Action Service (EEAS) is the diplomatic service in charge of executing all Foreign relations of the European Union, international relations of the European Union. The EEAS is led by the Vice-President of the European Co ...

. Although it is outside the EU, its presidency rotates inline with that of the EU Council presidency and acts as a formal interface between the Club de Berne and the EU.

References

Bodies of the Common Security and Defence Policy Counterterrorist organizations {{EU-stub

See also

References