Description
The EU’s revised Cybersecurity Strategy (2020) has been constructed in the context of increasing geopolitical tension and within a dynamically evolving technological environment. The onset of new technologies has brought with it new opportunities but also perceived risks and threats in cyberspace, to which the EU has sought to elicit a more comprehensive approach. The new EU strategy aims to harness and strengthen its existing ability through a ‘technological sovereignty’ approach and enhanced leadership. In light of the EU’s willingness to be more assertive in this field - in particular through the imposition of restrictive measures on individuals responsible for high profile cyber-attacks - we seek in this paper to critically unpack what this implies and indeed signifies in terms of the EU’s evolving approach. At the general level, we ask what the practical implications are of the EU taking ownership of a traditionally statist concept such as ‘sovereignty’ and applying it to cyberspace. More specifically, we problematize the concept of technological sovereignty in the context of the EU’s fluid cyber ecosystem; and assess the central implications of it relating to enhancing the EU’s cyber resilience, and most importantly, in further shaping the EU’s international leadership in cybersecurity.
