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The European Union (EU) is currently experiencing significant geopolitical shifts and is concerned that its dependence on externally produced or foreign-owned technologies risks its strategic autonomy, with implications for its security and economy. In response, it has placed sovereignty at the forefront of its agenda and at the centre of its relations with the world. Academic literature has so far paid limited attention to understanding the interactions between geopolitics, perceptions of technological dependence, and the impact on policy governance in cybersecurity. Bearing this gap in mind, the article asks how the EU's discourse of sovereignty and reducing external dependencies is shaping its approach to cybersecurity. Applying regulatory mercantilism and policy analysis to three case-studies—focusing on control of semiconductors, data server location, and cybersecurity certification— the article finds that the EU's depiction of its cybersecurity as impacted by dependence on externally manufactured products resulted in the merging of security and economic rationales. This has translated into efforts for greater control, either through promoting production within the European physical space through security-influenced industrial policies or—when this is not possible—by exerting regulatory influence beyond Europe's borders. Where globalization is believed to have failed, regulatory mercantilism becomes more likely as a policy approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its Joint Communication on Hybrid Threats, the EU has publicly recognized the risks to its security posed by non-traditional means aimed at undermining its legitimacy. The propagation of disinformation including misleading political advertising serves as a key example of how the Commission's perception of the EU's vulnerability to hybrid threats in times of geopolitical instability is shaping its regulatory policies. This article uses the framework of regulatory mercantilism, which argues that in conditions of perceived vulnerability, a state-like actor will reassert regulatory control based on a security logic in areas previously characterized by self-regulatory regimes. This article considers the Commission's 2019–2024 priorities, and how the spheres of technology, security, and democracy policies are intersecting as a response to hybrid threats. As a result, online platform governance in the EU is being substantially restructured with a move from systems of self-regulation to co-regulation backed by sanction as a means of combating hybrid threats online. The Commission's "taking back control" from platforms in the context of a digital sovereignty agenda serves as an example of regulatory mercantilism in digital policy, which sees the Commission seek to promote regulatory strength in response to perceived vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the evolution of the European Union's cybersecurity policy, highlighting its transition from reactive measures to a comprehensive strategy focused on resilience, cooperation, and technological advancement. The EU's cybersecurity policy has undergone three distinct phases: genesis, institutionalization, and regulatory, with a focus on regulatory mercantilism to gain control of cybersecurity governance. The article also explores the EU's efforts to export its cybersecurity norms internationally through cyber-diplomacy initiatives. Overall, the EU's cybersecurity policy is seen as a central pillar of its initiatives to provide leadership in a world perceived as presenting complex threats to its stability and security. [Extracted from the article]

In recent years, we have been able to observe the emergence and mainstreaming of an EU discourse on digital sovereignty, which highlights the importance of gaining back control of EU digital infrastructure and technological production, based on the EU's perceived loss of economic competitiveness, limited capacity to innovate, high degree of dependence on foreign digital infrastructures and service providers and, related to all these factors, difficulty in providing EU citizens with a high level of cybersecurity. Bearing in mind that a considerable percentage of these infrastructures and service providers are under private sector control, the present article asks how this sovereignty discourse conceptualises the role of the private sector in EU cybersecurity. Drawing from a Regulatory Capitalism theoretical model, this article proposes that the EU has instead entered a Regulatory Mercantilist phase where it seeks to reassert its control over cyberspace, impose digital borders, accumulate data wealth and reduce its dependence on external private sector actors whose values may not reflect those of the EU order. A new approach to cybersecurity is emerging, in which the non-EU private sector can be perceived as much of a threat as foreign powers, and from whom digital sovereignty must be secured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates in and over the European Union (EU) are increasingly characterised as being based in arguments that are either 'populist' or 'technocratic'. As systems of communication, this article argues, populism and technocracy possess dramatically different logics of argumentation, modes of communication and meaning-making, distinct narratives, with appeals to distinct sources of legitimacy. As such, actors adopting either political style construct their identity in a way that seeks to legitimise its own political action, while in turn delegitimising that of its opponents. This results in an atmosphere of distrust between actors using these different communication styles, making any form of negotiation or cooperation between them exceedingly difficult. In the context of the Brexit negotiations, which this article uses as a case study, the UK Government has adopted a populist style characterised by narratives of taking back control, legitimised by the will of the people, communicating often in a 'low' political style and using a narrative of crisis and threat. In comparison, the EU has adopted a technocratic style characterised by narratives of technical policy making and the need for rationality, legitimised through the laws, rules and processes by which it is governed, communicating in a 'high' political style while using a narrative of stability and continuity. These radically different views of the world have resulted in an increasing of tensions and distrust by the parties to Brexit negotiations that were already heightened by a sense of 'betrayal' over Brexit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article demonstrates the role and importance of EU agencies in the EU's regulatory environment, and considers the consequences of an absence of cooperation through agencies for internal security. It does so by exploring the case study of the anti-counterfeiting activities of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), and what happens when a state no longer benefits from membership of an EU agency. The effective protection of consumers from counterfeit goods is dependent upon identifying best practices, sharing information on counterfeiting trends, and coordinating responses, activities undertaken through EU agencies. This article demonstrates that the ability of states to effectively counter the sale of counterfeit goods is dependent upon the existence of EU agencies due to the need for transnational cooperation. In the absence of EU agencies, states are likely to suffer diminished operational expertise and a lack of in-depth knowledge concerning counterfeiting trends. It concludes that the EU agencies form an essential part of EU security governance, with states not party to these cooperative endeavours rendered vulnerable and unable to combat at a national level what is ultimately a global problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the auspices of the Communication on a "Modern, More European Copyright Framework", the European Commission has brought forward a series of proposals seeking to facilitate easier cross-border portability of content, greater flexibilities and exceptions to copyright for activities such as text and data mining, while ensuring the effective enforcement of copyright online. However, the proposal for a Directive has been subject to intense lobbying from all sides, with revisions to the proposal strengthening enforcement and broadening the rights afforded. This comment focuses on the nature of the lobbying undertaken by interested parties, and how it represents a continuation of "business as usual" for copyright reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]