Not Yet Fit for the World: Piecemeal Buildup of EU Military, Cyber and Intelligence Assets

In the past decades, the EU has developed an increasingly broad, multi-sectoral set of foreign and security policy instruments. All of these can be relevant in sustaining the EU’s crisis and conflict management efforts. While trying to create a more effective and integrated toolbox, the Union has faced a number of challenges. First, as the EU’s scope of activity and level of ambition have increased, the need to strengthen the “harder end” of instruments – including military, cyber and intelligence tools – has been widely acknowledged, but these remain weak. Second, with EU policies extending to areas where the Union’s resources and competencies are weak, the need to mobilise member states’ resources has become more important, but ensuring meaningful contributions from member states has proven difficult. Third, it has become an ever more complex task to connect the multiple sectors to each other to build a comprehensive policy.