I would like to thank Minister Minniti for hosting this very important G7 ministerial meeting.
Our security environment is volatile. The leaders of the G7 met in Taormina and issued a clear call to action against terrorism.
Terrorism has become global. It requires a global response.
The G7 gives a global dimension. Our objective is to protect our citizens and our democracies.
In times like these, our internal and external efforts to combat terrorism are a continuum.
If we want to effectively fight terrorism, at all levels, international cooperation is a sine qua non.
The United States, Canada, and Japan are crucial partners for Europe in this global endeavour.
We all face the same challenges:
Daesh has been defeated in Syria and Iraq, but it might regroup elsewhere.
Foreign terrorist fighters might disperse or return and we have to be ready.
It might exploit other weak spots to reorganise.
Most worrying is its presence on the internet, where it is still spreading like a virus.
More than ever, the internet has become the battleground to fight terrorism.
The internet is the space where our citizens can join us in protecting our democracies.
Thanks to our voluntary and trustful relationship with key internet industry players, through the EU Internet Forum that we founded 3 years ago, we have achieved a lot already.
I am very pleased to see that some companies are now removing more than 80% of terrorist content automatically.
Together with key representatives from the internet industry present here today, we all agreed that our joint efforts must continue, as you can see from the joint statement that we adopted today.
We asked for concrete action on the way forward
And I count on more companies joining our partnership of trust.
We will also follow up on all this at our next EU Internet Forum on 6 December.
Beyond the internet, information exchange remains the essential pillar of our worldwide cooperation on counter-terrorism.
We also need to better protect Europe from the inside.
On Wednesday we presented important operational measures to better support our Member States to protect public spaces.
Together with these immediate and operational measures, we keep working with all Member States for a better coordination between law enforcement and intelligence services.
We don’t need a proliferation of structures, but better synergies –both inside and outside Europe.