A policy for a common European intelligence system
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Abstract
[The European Union (EU) is severely lacking in terms of intelligence capabilities, as
members have repeatedly noted in various resolutions over the last five years. Despite existing
models for intelligence-sharing, like Europol and the Schengen Information System, the EU has
failed to build a central intelligence function to serve its Common Foreign and Security Policy.
Several events in the last year have accelerated the need for a common European
intelligence system: The terrorists who launched the attacks on the United States on Sept. 11,
2001 had been operating within EU member countries for some time, yet EU members only
realized this after the attacks had happened, when European intelligence agencies began sharing
information with each other and the United States. If such intelligence-sharing had existed prior
to the attacks, the terrorists' plan may have been thwarted. The EU also has found an increasing
need for its members to share criminal intelligence on organized crime, money laundering and
counterfeiting since the EU unveiled its common currency, the euro, on Jan. 1, 2002. But the
most pressing need for a common intelligence function is one to guide the EU's military force,
which is to be deployed next year. There is a saying that an army is blind without intelligence,
and the EU must develop an intelligence function before any troops are sent abroad.
But there are a few challenges to building an intelligence system: Britain's cozy
relationship with the United States, which threatens Britain's ties to fellow ED members;
concern from NATO and the U.S. that an ED intelligence agency would compete with their
intelligence systems; and long-held bilateral intelligence-sharing agreements among ED
members which could be jeopardized if EU members must share all intelligence with each other.
Yet these can be overcome. I will show that a common intelligence system is feasible and
affordable if the ED takes advantage of its existing resources and those of its members.]
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This work is being made available in OpenBU by permission of its author, and is available for research purposes only. All rights are reserved to the author.