Abstract
Existing scholarship on intelligence cooperation is largely informed by Anglo-American experiences at the strategic level. However, this paper seeks to contribute to the understanding of intelligence cooperation by examining member state intelligence support to foreign policymaking in the European Union. Increasingly, policymakers in the European Union take important foreign policy decisions for European nations. Although the European Union has various sense-making systems, these intelligence consumers require support from the national intelligence communities. Therefore, several member states are seconding intelligence officers to the European Union Intelligence and Situation Centre to share expertise and to facilitate this cooperation. These experts with diverse backgrounds, identities, cultures, attitudes, and interests are tasked with working in conjunction to improve policymaking. Their home organisations have varying selection procedures and retain different relationships to them. Given this diversity, this intelligence cooperation does not occur without friction, impacting its performance. In studying diplomatic secondment and cooperation, especially on building a European ‘esprit de corps’, the European Studies have addressed similar issues at the organisational level. Leveraging this literature and drawing on elite interviews with European intelligence practitioners, this paper seeks to understand the impact of national seconding practices on intelligence support to foreign policymaking in the European Union.
Panel: European Security
Cite this presentation
@inproceedings{eiss-2023-the-role-of-national-secondments-for-intelligence-support-to-eu-foreign-policyma,
author = {Daniel Neumann},
title = {The Role of National Secondments for Intelligence Support to EU Foreign Policymaking},
booktitle = {European Security Studies Conference 2023},
year = {2023},
url = {https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2023-the-role-of-national-secondments-for-intelligence-support-to-eu-foreign-policyma.html}
}