"I have to agree with the colleagues that say all the right decisions have long been made. We're not entirely successful in implementing many of them," said Rinkēvičs.
For example, the agreement over creating a passenger registry has been concluded for quite a while, however the directive took a long time to be ratified at the European Parliament. The bill has been sent to the Latvian parliament where it could be adopted in the fall.
According to Rinkēvičs, in several countries the problem is not to be found at the EU level but inside the country.
"Unfortunately in many countries the main problem is information exchange between [interior] security services," said Rinkēvičs.
He said that the worries of security services are understandable as they do not want to share information to protect valuable sources and to prevent the information from falling into the wrong hands.
"On the other hand, however, we understand well that this lack of cooperation increases risks. That's why, as concerns cooperation and information exchange, in my opinion most of the decisions have been made. Some of them are being carried out, more or less, and some aren't," he said.
According to Rinkēvičs, EU-level talks are slated about info exchange with the Gulf States.
"However we see that, when support is granted, in Syria for example, to some opposition group, there are times when money or other resources fall into the wrong hands.
That's why we have many things to discuss with the countries of the region outside Europe," said Rinkēvičs.
He stressed that the EU cannot do much more in decision making over counter-terrorism measures and that emphasis should be placed on carrying these decisions out.
"And there's a lot left to do in that regard," said the Latvian Foreign Minister.
