Yesterday the EU announced plans to “create a CIA-style European spy service”, as Politico’s headline put it. On social media, many responded to the report with satirical and mocking comments. “But there already is a CIA-style spy agency operating across all of Europe. It’s called the CIA,” one user quipped on X. “I propose to call the new agency Gestapo,” jibed another. Such comments are indicative of the mood in Europe today, where any policy proposal coming out of Brussels tends to be met with a heavy dose of scepticism and mistrust.

This is understandable, given the increasingly unaccountable nature, ever-broadening scope, and growing list of policy failures of EU institutions — first and foremost the European Commission. So it’s not surprising that most people instinctively find the idea of giving “Empress” Ursula von der Leyen an army of supranational spooks to spy on citizens and carry out other nefarious “CIA-like” activities deeply disturbing.

Fortunately, that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon. Politico’s clickbaity headline refers to one of the many proposals contained in a new report authored by former Finnish president Sauli Niinistö on “Strengthening Europe’s Civilian and Military Preparedness and Readiness”. Highlighting recent crises — particularly the war in Ukraine — Niinistö advocates for a “comprehensive preparedness” approach, which would ensure the EU can “function under all circumstances” through an integrated response to cross-border crises. This approach, according to the report, must incorporate a “whole-of-government and whole-of-society” framework, enabling active participation from citizens, private sectors, and public authorities​.

The report then puts forward a mixed bag of vague proposals, such as cultivating a “preparedness culture” within EU institutions and among citizens, long-term investments in critical infrastructure and defence, formalising cross-sectoral crisis response and “enhancing EU intelligence-sharing capacities”. The latter is the one most news reports have picked up on.

One area of focus is enhancing intelligence-gathering and sharing at the EU level, primarily in terms of improvements to the bloc’s Single Intelligence Analysis Capacity (SIAC), which currently depends on voluntary contributions from member states. The report thus emphasises the need for more structured and reliable intelligence-sharing from member states. More controversially, in addition to SIAC’s role, the report also proposes the eventual development of an EU intelligence cooperation service, which would effectively amount to a supranational body that would be complementary to national intelligence-gathering activities.