European Union is keen on substantially raising its cooperation with India in counter-terrorism and the two sides are exploring the possibility of signing a mutual legal assistance treaty. In the aftermath of Mumbai attacks, India and the 27-nation block are also looking at the possibility of an agreement between CBI and its European counterpart Europol for effective coordination between the two agencies in checking crime. EU's Counter-Terrorism Coordinator Gilles de Kerchove, who is New Delhi to hear the lessons learnt from 26/11 attacks, discussed the issues of security cooperation with National Security Adviser M K Narayanan, Home Secretary G K Pillai and chiefs of CBI, Intelligence Bureau and RAW. In an interview with PTI, he identified the possible areas of cooperation as intelligence sharing, research and development of skills of counter-terror security forces. Talking about EU's keenness to boost cooperation in security and counter-terrorism, Kerchove said India is one of the most important countries as the two sides are faced with global terrorist threats. He said, EU also wants to learn from India about how to curb financing of terrorists considering its experience in working against Hawala channels. The EU official said information flow was already happening and because of this a number of terror attacks were foiled in India. He, however, did not give details. Kerchove also talked about the possibility of EU member states training police forces of Indian states and said he had discussed this issue with Indian officials.<br/>