Allied Intelligence — 2026-08-12

MI6 Named Europe Most Powerful Intelligence Service in Survey of 60 Current and Former Officials

BLUFPeer perception rankings like this shape real liaison access and burden-sharing leverage, giving London a diplomatic tool to consolidate its lead role in coordinating allied intelligence support to Ukraine.

French weekly L'Express surveyed 60 serving and former intelligence officials from 25 countries over three months, seventeen of them heads or former heads of a service, and ranked MI6 as Europe's most capable foreign intelligence service using a points system modeled on the Ballon d'Or and the Eurovision Song Contest, with agencies judged on efficiency and reliability 12. MI6 finished with 251 points against 169 for France's DGSE in second place, with the Netherlands' AIVD third on 97 points, Ukraine's FISU fourth on 77, and Germany's BND fifth on 62 23. Respondents cited MI6's recruitment from Oxford and Cambridge and its practice of cultivating agents over a decade or more in Russia, China, Iran and Turkey; former CIA station chief Robert Gorelick called Britain's services "by far the strongest in Europe," and former CIA Europe operations chief Ralph Goff said Britain has "taken the lead" on Ukraine-related intelligence work 23. Israel was excluded from the European ranking, though former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen took part in the survey, and L'Express deputy editor Étienne Girard said a global ranking would likely place the United States first with Mossad second or third behind Britain 4.

Analysis
L'Express's peer-perception survey functions as soft-power signaling rather than operational assessment, reinforcing London's claim to primacy in coordinating allied intelligence support to Kyiv amid unresolved NATO burden-sharing debates; such rankings shape liaison trust and compartmented sharing access among partner services. DGSE's second-place finish exposes a gap between France's global operational reach and its peer standing on long-horizon human recruitment, while Mossad's exclusion from the formal ranking despite informal top-tier placement reflects unresolved categorization tension between European and Middle Eastern intelligence blocs. Resting on a single primary account with only secondary amplification, the ranking may reflect participants' proximity to British liaison relationships and media visibility as much as independent operational effectiveness.
4 sources
  1. MI6, DGSE, Ukraine... L'Express reveals an unprecedented ranking of Europe's best spies
  2. MI6 Voted Europe's Top Intelligence Agency by Panel of Sixty Global Intelligence Professionals - IBTimes UK
  3. MI6 rated Europe's most effective intelligence agency - National Security News
  4. MI6 Named Europe Most Powerful Intelligence Service in New Ranking - Khaama Press

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