EU role in protecting critical infrastructure – a case of functional and geographical spill-over?

The proposed paper would analyse the evolution of EU’s role in protecting critical infrastructure (CI) of its member states and candidate countries. It will focus on the following research questions: (1) what have been the effects of previous “big-bang” enlargement on the evolution of this policy within a changing global geopolitical context and in terms of Central and Eastern European countries’ input into the development of CI protection norms on the EU level; (2) how the EU is currently trying to expand the regulatory area of protecting CI into the current candidate countries within the context of Russia’s war in Ukraine; and (3) how these processes could be conceptualised by using the concepts of European integration theories such as neofunctionalism. The paper will be based on the research planned within the framework of the Horizon funded project InvigoratEU and will draw on the material, including interviews, collected during the project activities.