Western Europe is giving its spies teeth

Intelligence agencies are gaining new powers and the freedom to use them, gradually turning the EU into a security state

Something fundamental has changed in Europe over the past months. Governments across the continent have begun expanding the powers of intelligence agencies at a pace that would have been difficult to imagine only a few years ago.

Germany is preparing to give its foreign intelligence service a far more operational role. The Netherlands is expanding the ability of its intelligence agencies to act proactively against hostile actors. Austria is broadening its definition of espionage. Sweden is rebuilding its foreign intelligence architecture.

Taken together, these amount to a European securitization drive: more activities are being redefined as security problems, more institutions are being brought inside the security apparatus, and intelligence services are being transformed from organizations that primarily collect information into agencies which are increasingly expected to act.

Western Europe’s security establishment has been shaken by two developments: the continuing perception of a more assertive and dangerous international environment, and growing political uncertainty surrounding America’s role in European security under President Donald Trump.

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Trump changed the conversation

The psychological shock came in March 2025, when the Trump administration temporarily halted US military and battlefield intelligence sharing with Vladimir Zelensky’s Ukraine.

For decades, European security planning had rested on an assumption that American intelligence capabilities would be available when the strategic stakes became serious. Suddenly, they could not be certain to rely on that anymore.

Later in 2025, the Netherlands reportedly stopped sharing certain information with US counterparts amid concerns over political interference and “human rights” considerations. Again, the immediate dispute was just one glimpse of the realization dawning on Washington’s European partners: intelligence cooperation is ultimately political, and political relationships can change.

The Europeans now had to confront a question they had largely been avoiding. What happens when an ally possessing the world’s most powerful intelligence apparatus can no longer be assumed to have the same political priorities?

The obvious answer is to build more European capacity. This does not mean that Europe is preparing to replace the US, or that trans-Atlantic intelligence cooperation is disappearing. But the European governments want to make sure their spies can still operate, even when Washington’s political priorities are different from theirs.

Germany: From spying to sabotage

Friedrich Merz’s Germany is perhaps the best example of how far the transformation could go. Berlin is pursuing the largest overhaul of the country’s intelligence system since World War II.

Under reforms expected to take effect in January, the Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, would receive substantially greater latitude to conduct offensive activities. In a state of tension or military defense, the service could conduct acts of sabotage abroad.

That’s a major conceptual departure for an organization traditionally associated primarily with foreign intelligence collection.

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The reforms would also expand the technological reach of German intelligence. The BND and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) would gain a greater ability to process large datasets with artificial intelligence and cross-reference biometric information with internet data. Telecommunications content collected for strategic intelligence purposes could be retained for up to six months, while communications data such as IP addresses could be retained for up to twelve months.

An intelligence agency that can collect more information is more powerful. An agency that can manipulate data, delete data, conduct offensive cyber operations or sabotage targets abroad becomes an instrument capable of exercising power, rather than simply informing those who exercise it.

In continental Europe, where historical experience has made the concentration of coercive authority particularly sensitive, that is a very big difference.

Austria is expanding what counts as espionage

The Austrian government is approaching the matter from a different angle. It has announced plans to strengthen its legal framework against espionage. Under the existing system, foreign intelligence activity could escape criminal liability when it was directed against entities other than Austria itself.

Under the proposed changes, espionage directed against international organizations headquartered in Austria could become a criminal offense. The list includes institutions such as the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations Office at Vienna, the OSCE and various EU bodies.

The definition of harm is also being revised to include activities that have the potential to damage Austria’s security and international standing or economic interests, rather than only when actual damage can be demonstrated. The law would also target the recruitment of individuals by foreign intelligence services, including so-called low-level agents.

This is another important feature of Europe’s new security politics: the security perimeter is expanding.

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The Netherlands wants intelligence to act first

In August 2026, the Dutch government proposed changes to national security legislation that would broaden the powers of the General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD), and the Defense Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD).

The proposed rules would allow the services to undertake certain proactive operations without obtaining prior permission and would facilitate greater intelligence sharing with the armed forces, other government bodies and private companies.

The government has explicitly identified China, Iran and Russia among the actors it regards as “obvious adversaries.”

It also increases private sector integration with the national security system. Technology companies, telecommunications firms and operators of critical infrastructure increasingly possess information that governments need, so the distinction between the intelligence community and the private economy is getting erased.

Sweden is rebuilding for the post-neutrality era

Sweden is undergoing its own institutional transformation.

On January 1, 2027, a new Swedish Foreign Intelligence Service, UND, is scheduled to begin operations, separating civilian foreign intelligence from military intelligence. The Swedish government argues that the division will clarify responsibilities and improve the country’s ability to assess a broader range of security threats.

Sweden’s accession to NATO fundamentally altered the country’s strategic environment, and the transformation of its intelligence architecture is a logical consequence.

Membership in NATO requires more than just military interoperability – a state needs to understand threats, produce intelligence, protect sensitive information and contribute intelligence to allies. Sweden is doing something which has become increasingly common across Europe: rebuilding national security institutions for a world in which strategic uncertainty is the baseline rather than the exception.

Brussels cannot build a European CIA – but it is building something

The irony is that the EU as a bloc remains remarkably weak when it comes to intelligence. National security is still firmly controlled by member states. Brussels can coordinate and analyze, but it does not command a conventional European intelligence service.

For decades, this was reinforced by national distrust. The EU’s most capable intelligence services preferred small circles of trusted partners. The Club de Berne, the continent’s best-known intelligence cooperation forum, has no permanent headquarters or secretariat and traditionally meets only periodically.

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The situation is beginning to change. Former Finnish President Sauli Niinistö proposed in 2024 that the EU should consider a fully fledged intelligence cooperation capability, effectively a European counterpart to the CIA, capable of serving both strategic and operational needs.

Politically, that remains unrealistic. Few member states are prepared to surrender control over their most sensitive intelligence capabilities to Brussels. But that does not mean European intelligence cooperation is standing still.

Intelligence liaison officers are increasingly present in EU member states’ permanent representations in Brussels. The European External Action Service is strengthening its intelligence-analysis capacity. The EU Intelligence and Situation Centre, INTCEN, is being developed as an increasingly important channel for classified information.

INTCEN does not conduct espionage itself. It relies on intelligence supplied voluntarily by national services and turns it into strategic assessments for European decision-makers.

That model may ultimately prove more realistic than a European CIA. Rather than one giant EU intelligence service, Europe is likely to develop smaller circles of national agencies sharing sensitive information, surrounded by stronger EU-level coordination and analytical institutions.

The real question is who controls the new power

There is a danger hidden inside this whole big transformation. Western European intelligence systems are historically diverse. They developed under different constitutional traditions, experiences of war, and conceptions of the relationship between intelligence and executive authority.

Intelligence services have traditionally been expected to support executive power, not become executive power themselves.

Giving intelligence agencies the ability to conduct offensive cyber operations, manipulate information, disrupt hostile networks or conduct sabotage may be justified under carefully defined circumstances. But every new capability raises the same questions: Who authorizes it? Who supervises it? Who can challenge it? What happens when a government wants to revise the perception of external threats?

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Europe is becoming a security state

Western Europe has legitimate reasons to strengthen its capacity to detect and disrupt threats. The strategic environment is more competitive. Cyber operations have become routine instruments of statecraft. Intelligence warfare increasingly targets companies, infrastructure, political institutions and individuals rather than simply military installations.

But the transformation should be watched closely. Europe’s intelligence revolution is happening through dozens of apparently technical decisions: a longer data-retention period here, a broader definition of espionage there, new cyber authorities somewhere else, closer cooperation with private companies, a new intelligence office in Brussels.

There is no single European ‘Intelligence Act,’ but there does not need to be one. The security state can expand incrementally – which may be exactly what is happening now.

The strategic shock created by the Ukraine war and uncertainty over America’s future role has accelerated a process that was already underway. European governments are concluding that they need more independent intelligence capacity, more operational flexibility and tighter cooperation among themselves.

The likely result will not be a European CIA. It will be something more distinctly European: powerful national intelligence services operating in increasingly dense networks, supported by a stronger Brussels-based analytical and coordinating layer.

The continent is giving its spies teeth. The next question is whether it will also build strong enough institutions to decide when – and against whom – they may bite.