The Internal, the External and the Virtual: The Coherence of EU Cyber Crime and EU Cyber Security Strategy

The last three decades have seen the development and complexification of the European Union (EU)’s security field, in both its internal and external dimensions. At the same time as the EU has expanded substantially its Common Foreign and Security Policy, the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice has become the EU’s most dynamic policy field. The transnational, non-military character of the security threats and challenges identified by the EU, associated with the technological innovations of dual-use has led to the progressive fusion between internal and external security concerns. Such concerns have often come to be represented as a security continuum, resulting in the intermingling of traditional internal security aspects in foreign policy, and traditional external security practices in Justice and Home Affairs. Empirical data, however, points to the idea that this merger has, so far, not been systematically operationalized, leading to a fragmented security field. By focusing on the case-study of EU cyber-security policies this paper will explore the extent of this fusing trend on the development of the EU’s security field. In particular, it will investigate whether the EU’s actorness in this field is coherently bringing together both its external and internal security concerns or, if on the contrary, these policies are being implemented according to different and uncoordinated rationales. And if this is the case, what are the consequences of this fragmentation and lack of coordination for the EU as a security actor.