MI6 has been ranked as the top intelligence agency in Europe, according to a new competition by French magazine L’Express.
The weekly magazine invited current or recently retired leaders of spy agencies around the world to rank their European counterparts, submitting their top five based on their own experience, taking inspiration from football’s Ballon d’Or and the music competition Eurovision.
L’Express said “some resisted” and “a few invoked secrecy” but “most, on the contrary, saw it as an opportunity to talk about their unusual profession without betraying their oath, subtly testing the boundaries”.
Sixty intelligence professionals from 25 countries around the world agreed to act as jurors, including seventeen heads or former heads of a secret service.
Five points were awarded for first place, four points for second, three for third, two for fourth and one for fifth. The selection criteria was “efficiency and reliability”.
The UK’s MI6 ranked top with 251 points, well ahead of the runner-up – France’s DGSE, which received 169 points. Last year, MI6 appointed Blaise Metreweli as its first ever female chief.
"The United Kingdom by far has the strongest intelligence services in Europe” former CIA station chief Robert Gorelick told the magazine. “MI6 is extraordinary.”
"The British have the ability to play the long game, to bet on sources over ten years, a bit like the Russians,” a former DGSE executive said. “And they have a penchant for underhand tactics.”
Olivier Mas, a senior officer at the DGSE until 2017, said: “All European intelligence services draw inspiration from British methods." He also said it is significant that “the best from Cambridge and Oxford join MI6".
And Ralph Goff, former head of operations for Europe and Eurasia at the CIA, said “the British are leading the way on the Ukrainian file. We’re just behind".
The Dutch AIVD ranked third with 97 points, while Ukraine’s FISU came fourth with 77 points and Germany’s BND fifth with 62 points.
Completing the top ten are Sweden (sixth, 40 points), Norway (seventh, 34 points), Estonia (eighth, 27 points), Poland (ninth, 22 points) and Denmark (tenth, 16 points).