The European Union Intelligence Agency
Visions and Realities
Copyright (c) 2025 Márton Balázs
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Abstract
At the request of the President of the European Commission, former Finnish President Sauli Niinistö examined in detail the state of civilian and military preparedness of the European Union. The creation of a fully-fledged EU service for intelligence cooperation is among the recommendations of the report. As a consequence, press articles have already appeared that envisage the establishment of an independent ‘European CIA’. In this study I review the current place of intelligence in the constitutional framework and geopolitical reality of the European Union, the current intelligence capacities available to the European Union, and the ideas regarding an independent European intelligence agency.
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