Conclusions: The Maturing EU Intelligence Community

The concluding chapter makes an overall assessment of the EU intelligence community as a cooperative network based on an enhanced capacity to deliver and share. It highlights specific features of this community as a complex network of agencies and practices dedicated to securing strategic EU interests. Referring to the metaphor of ‘hunters and gatherers’, it discusses the impediments to the establishment of a single EU intelligence agency. It concludes with a thesis that the complex network of institutions, agencies and services involved in the gathering, processing, analysing and exchanging of intelligence in the framework of EU law makes a remarkable contribution to EU security policies and strengthens the preventive capability of EU agencies and national authorities.