The European Union needs to set up its own spy agency that would be in charge of coordinating intelligence sharing among member states to boost the bloc’s readiness for war and crises, argued Finland’s former president, Sauli Niinistö, in a report unveiled on Wednesday, October 30th.
If enacted, the proposal would further extend the power and competencies of Brussels, most likely at the expense of member states’ sovereignty.
Similarly to the Draghi report on how to fix the EU’s competitiveness crisis, the document was ordered by the European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen back in March to serve as a blueprint for the incoming European Commission on how to raise Europe’s preparedness for future military conflict.
Among his 80 recommendations for strengthening both military and civil defense readiness, Niinistö calls on Brussels to develop a “fully fledged intelligence cooperation service at the EU level that can serve both the strategic and operational needs,” as well as an additional “anti-sabotage network” to protect critical infrastructure.
According to Niinistö, centralized measures taken at the EU level are key not only to effectively combat cross-border operations of foreign spy networks that are impacting multiple member states, but also to “enhance counter espionage work in EU institutions,” he said at Wednesday’s press conference while presenting his report.