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BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Union's counter-terrorism chief says they believe Daesh, or ISIS, is showing signs of weakness.
In an address to the European Parliament, Gilles de Kerchove explained how they are now seeing Daesh focusing more effort on creating a caliphate and hitting targets in external countries.
Speaking to the European Parliament committee on civil liberties, Kerchove defended his strategy in tackling radicalism which has taken major criticism in the wake of the Paris attacks.
"There is maybe a change in the strategy of Deash - so far more concentrated on building a caliphate and now targeting the members of the coalition. Is this a sign of weakness? I believe so. Daesh has always tried to show victory. That was the way to attract new fighters, to get more money," he said.
But Members of the European Parliament say attacks on European soil are too easy for terror organizations to plan.
"And I'm wondering, seeing the terrorist attacks in Europe why it seems to be that easy to buy all kinds of weapons inside Europe," said Birgit Sippel, a German member of the European Parliament.
As Paris continues to mourn the attacks that killed 130 people, some have been calling for the European Union to bring in broader reaching surveillance. But others say the current measures should have been enough.
"The Paris attacks happened in France. The French secret service has a lot more power than the British secret service, and still the attacks happened,” said Pieter Cleppe, Brussels director of Open Europe. “So they just need to do their jobs and job number one is that secret services all over Europe share information about the suspected terrorists."
Although there is consensus among the EU member states that more needs to be done to prevent home grown terrorism, reaching agreement on concrete measures remains elusive.
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