Denmark’s military intelligence service has for the first time classified the U.S. as a security risk, a striking shift in how one of Washington’s closest European allies assesses the transatlantic relationship. In its 2025 intelligence outlook published Wednesday, the Danish Defense Intelligence Service warned that the U.S. is increasingly prioritizing its own interests and “using its economic and technological strength as a tool of power,” including toward allies and partners. “The United States uses economic power, including in the form of threats of high tariffs, to enforce its will and no longer excludes the use of military force, even against allies,” it said, in a pointed reference to Washington trying to wrest control of Greenland from Denmark. The assessment is one of the strongest warnings about the U.S. to come from a European intelligence service. In October, the Dutch spies said they had stopped sharing some intelligence with their U.S. counterparts, citing political interference and human rights concerns. The Danish warning underscores European unease as Washington leverages industrial policy more aggressively on the global stage, and highlights the widening divide between the allies, with the U.S. National Security Strategy stating that Europe will face the “prospect of civilizational erasure” within the next 20 years. The Danish report also said that “there is uncertainty about how China-U.S. relations will develop in the coming years” as Beijing’s rapid rise has eroded the U.S.’s long-held position as the undisputed global power. Washington and Beijing are now locked in a contest for influence, alliances and critical resources, which has meant the U.S. has “significantly prioritized” the geographical area around it — including the Arctic — to reduce China’s influence. “The USA’s increasingly strong focus on the Pacific Ocean is also creating uncertainty about the country’s role as the primary guarantor of security in Europe,” the report said. “The USA’s changed policy places great demands on armaments and cooperation between European countries to strengthen deterrence against Russia.” In the worst-case scenario, the Danish intelligence services predict that Western countries could find themselves in a situation in a few years where both Russia and China are ready to fight their own regional wars in the Baltic Sea region and the Taiwan Strait, respectively.

Lithuania on Tuesday declared a nationwide state of emergency over a surge in contraband-carrying balloons flying over the border from Belarus. “It’s clear that this emergency is being declared not only because of disruptions to civil aviation, but also due to national security concerns and the need for closer coordination among institutions,” Lithuanian Interior Minister Vladislav Kondratovič said during a government meeting Tuesday. Kondratovič added that the government had asked the parliament to grant the military additional powers to work with the law enforcement authorities during the state of the emergency. “By introducing a state of emergency today, we are legitimizing the participation of the military … and indeed, every evening, a number of crews go out together with the police, conduct patrols, monitor the territory, and detect cargo,” he said. Lithuania has accused its neighbor Belarus of repeatedly smuggling contraband cigarettes into the country using balloons, prompting air traffic disruptions and a border closure with Belarus. Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has called Vilnius’ response “petty.” According to Lithuanian Interior Ministry data, at least 600 balloons and 200 drones entered Lithuania’s airspace this year, disrupting more than 300 flights, affecting 47,000 passengers and leading to around 60 hours of airport closures. Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė said the state emergency will help coordination between joint response teams to better intercept the balloons, which both Lithuania and the EU consider to be hybrid attacks. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys told POLITICO in an interview in October that the EU must prepare new sanctions against Belarus to deprive it of the ability to wage hybrid war.

BERLIN — Germany will launch a new federal counter-drone unit as concerns mount over a surge of suspicious drones overflying military sites and critical infrastructure, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said Tuesday. The formation will be part of the federal police’s national special operations arm, and will be trained and certified specifically for drone detection and neutralization, Dobrindt said at an event outside Berlin. The unit will eventually grow to 130 officers, deployed across Germany and moved quickly to hot spots when needed. Germany has over €100 million budgeted this year and next for counter-drone technology, the minister said. The systems include sensors and jammers designed to disrupt hostile drone signals, with the capability to intercept or shoot them down if necessary. “It is an important signal that we are confronting hybrid threats,” Dobrindt said. “We are creating a clear mission to detect, intercept and, yes, also shoot down drones when necessary. We cannot accept that hybrid threats, including drones, become a danger to our security.” Dobrindt said Germany will procure systems from both German and Israeli manufacturers, with further purchases expected in the coming months. This week, Germany’s state interior ministers are also due to decide whether to establish a joint federal-state counter-drone center, bringing together federal and state police forces and the military to coordinate detection and response. Berlin’s new unit marks its most significant move so far toward a standing national counter-drone capability. German security agencies have tracked hundreds of suspicious drone flyovers this year, including near barracks, naval facilities and critical infrastructure. Officials warn that small, commercially available drones are increasingly deployed in Europe for espionage, probing defenses and hybrid operations. Some European governments have pointed the finger of blame at Russia, but so far proof is lacking. Airports across Europe have also been forced to close thanks to overflying drones. Last month, the U.K., France and Germany sent staff and equipment to help Belgium counter drone incursions around sensitive facilities. Many countries are trying to figure out how to deal with the drones in a safe and legal way, as shooting them down could endanger people on the ground.

Europe’s security does not depend solely on our physical borders and their defense. It rests on something far less visible, and far more sensitive: the digital networks that keep our societies, economies and democracies functioning every second of the day. > Without resilient networks, the daily workings of Europe would grind to a > halt, and so too would any attempt to build meaningful defense readiness. A recent study by Copenhagen Economics confirms that telecom operators have become the first line of defense in Europe’s security architecture. Their networks power essential services ranging from emergency communications and cross-border healthcare to energy systems, financial markets, transport and, increasingly, Europe’s defense capabilities. Without resilient networks, the daily workings of Europe would grind to a halt, and so too would any attempt to build meaningful defense readiness. This reality forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth: Europe cannot build credible defense capabilities on top of an economically strained, structurally fragmented telecom sector. Yet this is precisely the risk today. A threat landscape outpacing Europe’s defenses The challenges facing Europe are evolving faster than our political and regulatory systems can respond. In 2023 alone, ENISA recorded 188 major incidents, causing 1.7 billion lost user-hours, the equivalent of taking entire cities offline. While operators have strengthened their systems and outage times fell by more than half in 2024 compared with the previous year, despite a growing number of incidents, the direction of travel remains clear: cyberattacks are more sophisticated, supply chains more vulnerable and climate-related physical disruptions more frequent. Hybrid threats increasingly target civilian digital infrastructure as a way to weaken states. Telecom networks, once considered as technical utilities, have become a strategic asset essential to Europe’s stability. > Europe cannot deploy cross-border defense capabilities without resilient, > pan-European digital infrastructure. Nor can it guarantee NATO > interoperability with 27 national markets, divergent rules and dozens of > sub-scale operators unable to invest at continental scale. Our allies recognize this. NATO recently encouraged members to spend up to 1.5 percent of their GDP on protecting critical infrastructure. Secretary General Mark Rutte also urged investment in cyber defense, AI, and cloud technologies, highlighting the military benefits of cloud scalability and edge computing – all of which rely on high-quality, resilient networks. This is a clear political signal that telecom security is not merely an operational matter but a geopolitical priority. The link between telecoms and defense is deeper than many realize. As also explained in the recent Arel report, Much More than a Network, modern defense capabilities rely largely on civilian telecom networks. Strong fiber backbones, advanced 5G and future 6G systems, resilient cloud and edge computing, satellite connectivity, and data centers form the nervous system of military logistics, intelligence and surveillance. Europe cannot deploy cross-border defense capabilities without resilient, pan-European digital infrastructure. Nor can it guarantee NATO interoperability with 27 national markets, divergent rules and dozens of sub-scale operators unable to invest at continental scale. Fragmentation has become one of Europe’s greatest strategic vulnerabilities. The reform Europe needs: An investment boost for digital networks At the same time, Europe expects networks to become more resilient, more redundant, less dependent on foreign technology and more capable of supporting defense-grade applications. Security and resilience are not side tasks for telecom operators, they are baked into everything they do. From procurement and infrastructure design to daily operations, operators treat these efforts as core principles shaping how networks are built, run and protected. Therefore, as the Copenhagen Economics study shows, the level of protection Europe now requires will demand substantial additional capital. > It is unrealistic to expect world-class, defense-ready infrastructure to > emerge from a model that has become structurally unsustainable. This is the right ambition, but the economic model underpinning the sector does not match these expectations. Due to fragmentation and over-regulation, Europe’s telecom market invests less per capita than global peers, generates roughly half the return on capital of operators in the United States and faces rising costs linked to expanding security obligations. It is unrealistic to expect world-class, defense-ready infrastructure to emerge from a model that has become structurally unsustainable. A shift in policy priorities is therefore essential. Europe must place investment in security and resilience at the center of its political agenda. Policy must allow this reality to be reflected in merger assessments, reduce overlapping security rules and provide public support where the public interest exceeds commercial considerations. This is not state aid; it is strategic social responsibility. Completing the single market for telecommunications is central to this agenda. A fragmented market cannot produce the secure, interoperable, large-scale solutions required for modern defense. The Digital Networks Act must simplify and harmonize rules across the EU, supported by a streamlined governance that distinguishes between domestic matters and cross-border strategic issues. Spectrum policy must also move beyond national silos, allowing Europe to avoid conflicts with NATO over key bands and enabling coherent next-generation deployments. Telecom policy nowadays is also defense policy. When we measure investment gaps in digital network deployment, we still tend to measure simple access to 5G and fiber. However, we should start considering that — if security, resilience and defense-readiness are to be taken into account — the investment gap is much higher that the €200 billion already estimated by the European Commission. Europe’s strategic choice The momentum for stronger European defense is real — but momentum fades if it is not seized. If Europe fails to modernize and secure its telecom infrastructure now, it risks entering the next decade with a weakened industrial base, chronic underinvestment, dependence on non-EU technologies and networks unable to support advanced defense applications. In that scenario, Europe’s democratic resilience would erode in parallel with its economic competitiveness, leaving the continent more exposed to geopolitical pressure and technological dependency. > If Europe fails to modernize and secure its telecom infrastructure now, it > risks entering the next decade with a weakened industrial base, chronic > underinvestment, dependence on non-EU technologies and networks unable to > support advanced defense applications. Europe still has time to change course and put telecoms at the center of its agenda — not as a technical afterthought, but as a core pillar of its defense strategy. The time for incremental steps has passed. Europe must choose to build the network foundations of its security now or accept that its strategic ambitions will remain permanently out of reach. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT * The sponsor is Connect Europe AISBL * The ultimate controlling entity is Connect Europe AISBL * The political advertisement is linked to advocacy on EU digital, telecom and industrial policy, including initiatives such as the Digital Networks Act, Digital Omnibus, and connectivity, cybersecurity, and defence frameworks aimed at strengthening Europe’s digital competitiveness. More information here.

BRUSSELS — Russia’s drones and agents are unleashing attacks across NATO countries and Europe is now doing what would have seemed outlandish just a few years ago: planning how to hit back. Ideas range from joint offensive cyber operations against Russia, and faster and more coordinated attribution of hybrid attacks by quickly pointing the finger at Moscow, to surprise NATO-led military exercises, according to two senior European government officials and three EU diplomats. “The Russians are constantly testing the limits — what is the response, how far can we go?” Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braže noted in an interview. A more “proactive response is needed,” she told POLITICO. “And it’s not talking that sends a signal — it’s doing.” Russian drones have buzzed Poland and Romania in recent weeks and months, while mysterious drones have caused havoc at airports and military bases across the continent. Other incidents include GPS jamming, incursions by fighter aircraft and naval vessels, and an explosion on a key Polish rail link ferrying military aid to Ukraine. “Overall, Europe and the alliance must ask themselves how long we are willing to tolerate this type of hybrid warfare … [and] whether we should consider becoming more active ourselves in this area,” German State Secretary for Defense Florian Hahn told Welt TV last week. Hybrid attacks are nothing new. Russia has in recent years sent assassins to murder political enemies in the U.K., been accused of blowing up arms storage facilities in Central Europe, attempted to destabilize the EU by financing far-right political parties, engaged in social media warfare, and tried to upend elections in countries like Romania and Moldova. But the sheer scale and frequency of the current attacks are unprecedented. Globsec, a Prague-based think tank, calculated there were more than 110 acts of sabotage and attempted attacks carried out in Europe between January and July, mainly in Poland and France, by people with links to Moscow. “Today’s world offers a much more open — indeed, one might say creative — space for foreign policy,” Russian leader Vladimir Putin said during October’s Valdai conference, adding: “We are closely monitoring the growing militarization of Europe. Is it just rhetoric, or is it time for us to respond?” Russia may see the EU and NATO as rivals or even enemies — former Russian President and current deputy Kremlin Security Council head Dmitry Medvedev last month said: “The U.S. is our adversary.” However, Europe does not want war with a nuclear-armed Russia and so has to figure out how to respond in a way that deters Moscow but does not cross any Kremlin red lines that could lead to open warfare. That doesn’t mean cowering, according to Swedish Chief of Defense Gen. Michael Claesson. “We cannot allow ourselves to be fearful and have a lot of angst for escalation,” he said in an interview. “We need to be firm.” So far, the response has been to beef up defenses. After Russian war drones were shot down over Poland, NATO said it would boost the alliance’s drone and air defenses on its eastern flank — a call mirrored by the EU. Even that is enraging Moscow. Europeans “should be afraid and tremble like dumb animals in a herd being driven to the slaughter,” said Medvedev. “They should soil themselves with fear, sensing their near and agonizing end.” SWITCHING GEARS Frequent Russian provocations are changing the tone in European capitals. After deploying 10,000 troops to protect Poland’s critical infrastructure following the sabotage of a rail line linking Warsaw and Kyiv, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Friday accused Moscow of engaging in “state terrorism.” After the incident, the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said such threats posed an “extreme danger” to the bloc, arguing it must “have a strong response” to the attacks. Last week, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto slammed the continent’s “inertia” in the face of growing hybrid attacks and unveiled a 125-page plan to retaliate. In it he suggested establishing a European Center for Countering Hybrid Warfare, a 1,500-strong cyber force, as well as military personnel specialized in artificial intelligence. “Everybody needs to revise their security procedures,” Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski added on Thursday. “Russia is clearly escalating its hybrid war against EU citizens.” WALK THE TALK Despite the increasingly fierce rhetoric, what a more muscular response means is still an open question. Part of that is down to the difference between Moscow and Brussels — the latter is more constrained by acting within the rules, according to Kevin Limonier, a professor and deputy director at the Paris-based GEODE think tank. “This raises an ethical and philosophical question: Can states governed by the rule of law afford to use the same tools … and the same strategies as the Russians?” he asked. So far, countries like Germany and Romania are strengthening rules that would allow authorities to shoot down drones flying over airports and militarily sensitive objects. National security services, meanwhile, can operate in a legal gray zone. Allies from Denmark to the Czech Republic already allow offensive cyber operations. The U.K. reportedly hacked into ISIS’s networks to obtain information on an early-stage drone program by the terrorist group in 2017. Allies must “be more proactive on the cyber offensive,” said Braže, and focus on “increasing situational awareness — getting security and intelligence services together and coordinated.” In practice, countries could use cyber methods to target systems critical to Russia’s war effort, like the Alabuga economic zone in Tatarstan in east-central Russia, where Moscow is producing Shahed drones, as well as energy facilities or trains carrying weapons, said Filip Bryjka, a political scientist and hybrid threat expert at the Polish Academy of Sciences. “We could attack the system and disrupt their functioning,” he said. Europe also has to figure out how to respond to Russia’s large-scale misinformation campaigns with its own efforts inside the country. “Russian public opinion … is somewhat inaccessible,” said one senior military official. “We need to work with allies who have a fairly detailed understanding of Russian thinking — this means that cooperation must also be established in the field of information warfare.” Still, any new measures “need to have plausible deniability,” said one EU diplomat. SHOW OF FORCE NATO, for its part, is a defensive organization and so is leery of offensive operations. “Asymmetric responses are an important part of the conversation,” said one NATO diplomat, but “we aren’t going to stoop to the same tactics as Russia.” Instead, the alliance should prioritize shows of force that illustrate strength and unity, said Oana Lungescu, a former NATO spokesperson and fellow with London’s Royal United Services Institute think tank. In practice, that means rapidly announcing whether Moscow is behind a hybrid attack and running ‘no-notice’ military exercises on the Russian border with Lithuania or Estonia. Meanwhile, the NATO-backed Centre of Excellence on Hybrid Threats in Helsinki, which brings together allied officials, is also “providing expertise and training” and drafting “policies to counter those threats,” said Maarten ten Wolde, a senior analyst at the organization.  “Undoubtedly, more should be done on hybrid,” said one senior NATO diplomat, including increasing collective attribution after attacks and making sure to “show through various means that we pay attention and can shift assets around in a flexible way.” Jacopo Barigazzi, Nicholas Vinocur, Nette Nöstlinger, Antoaneta Roussi and Seb Starvecic contributed reporting.

BRUSSELS — European Parliament members this week rubbished the EU executive’s Democracy Shield plan, an initiative aimed at bolstering the bloc’s defenses against Russian sabotage, election meddling and cyber and disinformation campaigns. The Commission’s plan “feels more like a European neighborhood watch group chat,” Kim van Sparrentak, a Dutch member of the Greens group, told a committee meeting on Monday evening. On Tuesday, EU Justice Commissioner Michael McGrath faced the brunt of that censure before the full Parliament plenary, as centrist and left-leaning lawmakers panned the plan for its weaknesses and far-right members warned that Brussels is rolling out a propaganda machine of its own. “We want to see more reform, more drive and more actions,” Swedish center-right lawmaker Tomas Tobé, who leads the Parliament’s report on the matter, told McGrath. The European Democracy Shield was unveiled Nov. 12 as a response to Russia’s escalating meddling in the bloc. In past months, Europe has been awash in hybrid threats. Security services linked railway disruptions in Poland and the Baltics to Russian-linked saboteurs, while unexplained drone flyovers have crippled public services in Belgium and probed critical infrastructure sites across the Nordics. At the same time, pro-Kremlin influence campaigns have promoted deepfake videos and fabricated scandals and divisive narratives ahead of elections in Moldova, Slovakia and across the EU, often using local intermediaries to mask their origins.   Together these tactics inform a pressure campaign that European security officials say is designed to exhaust institutions, undermine trust and stretch Europe’s defenses.  The Democracy Shield was a key pledge President Ursula von der Leyen made last year. But the actual strategy presented this month lacks teeth and concrete actions, and badly fails to meet the challenge, opponents said. While “full of new ways to exchange information,” the strategy presents “no other truly new or effective proposals to actually take action,” said van Sparrentak, the Dutch Greens lawmaker.  EU RESPONSE A WORK IN PROGRESS Much of the Shield’s text consists of calls to support existing initiatives or proposed new ones to come later down the line.   One of the pillars of the initiative, a Democratic Resilience Center that would pool information on hybrid warfare and interference, was announced by von der Leyen in September but became a major sticking point during the drafting of the Shield before its Nov. 12 unveiling.  The final proposal for the Center lacks teeth, critics said. Instead of an independent agency, as the Parliament had wanted, it will be a forum for exchanging information, two Commission officials told POLITICO.  The Center needs “a clear legal basis” and should be “independent” with “proper funding,” Tobé said Tuesday.   Austrian liberal Helmut Brandstätter said in a comment to POLITICO that “some aspects of the center are already embedded in the EEAS [the EU’s diplomatic service] and other institutions. Instead of duplicating them, we should strive to consolidate and streamline our tools.” EU countries also have to opt into participating in the center, creating a risk that national authorities neglect its work.  RIGHT BLASTS EU ‘CENSORSHIP’  For right-wing and far-right forces, the Shield reflects what they see as EU censorship and meddling by Brussels in European national politics.   “The stated goals of the Democracy Shield look good on paper but we all know that behind these noble goals, what you actually want is to build a political machinery without an electoral mandate,” said Csaba Dömötör, a Hungarian MEP from the far-right Patriots group.   “You cannot appropriate the powers and competence of sovereign countries and create a tool which is going to allow you to have an influence on the decisions of elections” in individual EU countries, said Polish hard-right MEP Beata Szydło.   Those arguments echo some of the criticisms by the United States’ MAGA movement of European social media regulation, which figures like Vice President JD Vance have previously compared to Soviet-era censorship laws.  The Democracy Shield strategy includes attempts to support European media organizations and fact-checking to stem the flood of disinformation around political issues. Romanian right-wing MEP Claudiu-Richard Târziu said her country’s 2024 presidential elections had been cancelled due to “an alleged foreign intervention” that remained unproven.  “This Democracy Shield should not create a mechanism whereby other member states could go through what Romania experienced in 2024 — this is an attack against democracy — and eventually the voters will have zero confidence,” he said.  In a closing statement on Tuesday at the plenary, Commissioner McGrath defended the Democracy Shield from its hard-right critics but did not respond to more specific criticisms of the proposal.  “To those who question the Shield and who say it’s about censorship. What I say to you is that I and my colleagues in the European Commission will be the very first people to defend your right to level robust debate in a public forum,” he said.

LONDON — Criminal networks are “weaponizing children” to commit torture and murder by recruiting them through multiplayer video games and smartphones — and parents often have no idea what’s happening, the boss of Europe’s law enforcement agency warns.  These groups now pose the greatest single criminal threat to the European Union because they destabilize society by targeting children and destroying families, said Catherine De Bolle, executive director of Europol.  “The weaponization of children for organized crime groups is what is going on at the moment on European soil,” she said in a joint interview with POLITICO and Welt. “They weaponize the children to torture or to kill. It’s not about petty theft anymore. It’s about big crimes.”  The “worst case” Europol has seen was of a young boy who was ordered “to kill his younger sister, which happened,” she said. “It’s cruel, we have never seen this before.”  She even suggested that children and young people are being used by hostile states and hybrid threat perpetrators as unwitting spies to eavesdrop on government buildings.  The Europol chief is in a unique position to describe the criminal landscape threatening European security, as head of the EU agency responsible for intelligence coordination and supporting national police. In a wide-ranging discussion, De Bolle also cautioned that the growth of artificial intelligence is having a dramatic impact, multiplying online crime, described how drug smugglers are now using submarines to ship cocaine from South America to Europe, and described an increasing threat to European society from Russia’s hybrid war.  De Bolle’s comments come amid an ongoing debate about how to police the internet and social media to prevent young and vulnerable people from coming to harm. The greatest threat facing the EU from organized crime right now comes from groups that have “industrialized” the recruitment of children, she said: “Because [they are] the future of the European Union. If you lose them, you lose everything.” FROM GAMING TO GROOMING Criminals often begin the process of grooming children by joining their multiplayer video games, which have a chat function, and gaining their trust by discussing seemingly harmless topics like pets and family life.  Then, they will switch to a closed chat where they will move on to discussing more sinister matters, and persuade the child to share personal details like their address. At that point, the criminals can bribe or blackmail the child into committing violence, including torture, self-harm, murder and even suicide.  Europol is aware of 105 instances in which minors were involved in violent crimes “performed as a service” — including 10 contract killings. Many attempted murders fail because children are inexperienced, the agency said. “We also have children who do not execute the order and then, for instance, [the criminals] kill the pet of the child, so that the child knows very well, ‘We know where you live, we know who you are, you will obey, and if you don’t, we will go even further to kill your mother or your father,’” De Bolle warned.  Criminals will also offer children money to commit a crime — as much as $20,000 for a killing, sometimes they pay and sometimes they don’t. While these networks often target children who are vulnerable because they have psychological problems or are bullied at school, healthy and happy children are also at risk, De Bolle said. “It’s also about others, youngsters who are not vulnerable but just want new shoes — shoes that are very expensive.”  Sometimes young people are even recruited for hybrid war by state actors, she said. “You also have it with hybrid threat actors that are looking for the crime as a service model — the young perpetrators to listen to the foreign state, to listen to the communication around buildings.” Once police catch a child, the criminals abandon them and move to groom a new child to turn into a remote-operated weapon.  “Parents blame themselves in a lot of cases. They do not understand how it is possible,” she said. “The problem is you don’t have access to everything your child does and you respect also the privacy of your children. But as a parent, you need to talk about the dangers of the internet.” DRUGS AND AI ARE ALSO A PROBLEM Among the new criminal methods crossing Europol’s desks, two stand out: The use of so-called narco-submarines to smuggle drugs like cocaine from South America into the EU and the growth in AI technology fueling an explosion in online fraud that enforcement agencies are virtually powerless to stop.  Instead of shipping cocaine into the ports of Hamburg, Rotterdam and Antwerp through containers, criminals have diversified their methods, De Bolle said. One key route is to sail semi-submersible vessels from South America to Europe’s North Atlantic coast, where speedboats meet them and offload the illegal cargo via Portugal, according to Europol’s information.  While Europe now is “overflooded with drugs,” criminal organizations may make more money, more easily through online fraud, she said. “Artificial intelligence is a multiplier for crime,” she said. “Everything is done a thousand times more and faster. The abuse of artificial intelligence lies in phishing emails — you do not recognize it very easily with phishing emails anymore because the language is correct.”  She said “romance fraud” is also “booming,” as “people look for love, also online.” “With deepfakes and with voice automation systems, it’s very difficult for a law enforcement authority to recognise that from a genuine picture. The technology is not there yet to [tell] the difference,” De Bolle added.  De Bolle said Europol needed to be able to access encrypted phone messages with a judge’s authorization to disrupt these criminal networks. “When a judge decides that we need to have access to data, the online providers should be forced to give us access to this encrypted communication,” she said. Otherwise, “we will be blind and then we cannot do our job.”

BERLIN — Europe’s top defense officials used a meeting in Berlin on Friday to send a unified message of support for Ukraine. The main takeaways: Backing for Kyiv will remain open-ended, hybrid threats against Europe are accelerating, and the continent’s biggest military powers intend to take on a larger share of their own defense as the war enters another hard winter. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius opened the session by emphasizing continuity. “Germany is prepared to continue taking the lead in supporting Ukraine,” he said, stressing that Berlin will maintain its multi-year funding for U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems and interceptors under the Ukraine-focused PURL mechanism, which coordinates deliveries of U.S. arms and tech to Ukraine via NATO members. Germany has already financed a €500 million air-defense package through this instrument and will contribute at least €150 million to a new package agreed this week. Berlin, he added, aims to present “something substantial” on joint procurement with the U.K. at the group’s next meeting in Warsaw. France stressed that long-term military and economic pressure on Moscow must intensify. French Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin pledged that Paris “will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes,” and pointed to France’s work preparing security guarantees for Kyiv in the Franco-British “coalition of the willing.”  She also called for stricter enforcement of sanctions, warning that Russia’s sanctions-evading “ghost fleet” finances a significant share of its war effort. “We have to increase the pressure to break this economic model,” she said. Italy highlighted its own set of assistance measures. Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said Italy will deliver €800 million in civilian support, including generators needed to navigate winter energy shortages, as well as additional military assistance through its fourth and 12th aid packages. “Our commitment to Kyiv will continue — always,” he said. Representing Poland, Deputy Defense Minister Paweł Zalewski linked Europe’s security directly to Ukrainian resilience. He underlined that Poland provides Kyiv with military equipment, financial support and political backing, insisting: “We believe that the security line of Europe lies on the Russo-Ukrainian front line.”  Warsaw plans to submit more than €40 billion in defense-industrial projects under the EU’s new investment scheme, including joint ventures with Ukrainian defense companies inside Poland to help boost Ukraine’s long-term capacity. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas delivered the meeting’s sharpest warning, citing a surge in “daily” hybrid attacks — sabotage, cyberattacks, drone incursions — and urging capitals not to normalize them.  “It is clear that Ukraine needs more air defense and more ammunition,” she said, arguing that the EU must help Kyiv keep pace with Russia’s escalating strikes. She stressed that EU capability planning complements that of NATO: “We cannot accept this as the new normal.” Threaded throughout the meeting was a shared conclusion: Europe expects a long war, and is preparing accordingly. As Pistorius put it, “Our measures are having an effect — and we must not ease up.”

The German government is set to get new powers to bar risky Chinese technology suppliers from its critical infrastructure. Lawmakers in the federal Bundestag parliament on Thursday approved legislation that would give new tools to the Interior Ministry to ban the use of components from specific manufacturers in critical sectors over cybersecurity risks. The measures resemble what European countries have done in the telecom sector, but the new German bill applies to a much wider range of sectors, including energy, transport and health care. The law comes as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Thursday signaled a tougher stance against Chinese tech giant Huawei, telling a business conference in Berlin that he “won’t allow any components from China in the 6G network.” Merz is set to discuss the issue at a major digital sovereignty summit co-hosted by Germany and France next week. The fresh scrutiny for supply chain security in the EU’s largest economy — a manufacturing powerhouse with a complex relationship with China — comes at a time when the European Union is considering how best to tackle cyber risks in supply chains dominated by Chinese firms. Governments are looking beyond the telecom sector, pushing for action in areas such as solar power and connected cars. European cybersecurity officials are finalizing an ICT Supply Chain Toolbox to help governments mitigate the risks, and the European Commission is preparing an overhaul of its Cybersecurity Act to address the issue, expected in January. The German legislation implements the EU’s NIS2 Directive, a critical infrastructure cybersecurity law. The Bundesrat, Germany’s upper legislative chamber, still has to sign off on the bill, which is expected next Friday. The key question is whether Germany is willing to use its powers, said Noah Barkin, a senior advisor at Rhodium Group, a think tank. On telecoms, “this helps lay the groundwork for pushing Huawei out of the 5G network, but it doesn’t guarantee that the political will will be there to take that decision,” he said.  The Interior Ministry could already block telecom operators from using particular components under an existing German IT security law. The law’s 2021 revision was widely seen as an attempt to get Chinese firms like Huawei and ZTE out of telecom network due to fears of cybersecurity and security risks. The Interior Ministry intervened in 2024, but it has never formally blocked the use of specific components under that law. For its new cyber law, the government originally proposed to extend the measures applying to the telecom industry to the electricity sector as well. But parliament’s version now applies to all critical sectors, which under the EU’s NIS2 law includes areas such as transport, health care and digital infrastructure.  German center-left lawmaker Johannes Schätzl, the digital policy spokesperson for the SPD, said this is a “logical step, because cyber and hybrid threats do not stop at sectoral boundaries.” The Interior Ministry will be required to consult with other arms of government when considering bans or blocks of certain suppliers, the bill said. In the past, some ministries like the digital and economy departments have been more reluctant to banning Chinese components, in part due to fears of economic retaliation from Beijing. Industry, too, could resist the new measures. German technology trade association Bitkom on Thursday said that the new rules could be unpredictable and therefore “detrimental.”

BRUSSELS — Ursula von der Leyen’s European Commission is laying the groundwork for a new intelligence coordination cell in Brussels. The initiative is still at a “very early, conceptual stage”, but the plan reflects a wider effort to bolster the EU executive’s security and intelligence functions, Commission spokespeople Balazs Ujvari and Paula Pinho told reporters. The new body would build on existing expertise, complementing the work of the Commission’s Security Directorate and coordinating closely with the European External Action Service. The cell will be small in scale and will focus on coordination rather than duplication, the spokespeople said. When asked whether the move was linked to the EU’s efforts to counter hybrid threats and foreign interference, Ujvari said the idea stemmed from a broader understanding of the changing “geopolitical and geoeconomic environment” rather than any single trigger. No name, staffing numbers, or launch date have been decided yet. The spokespersons added that discussions are ongoing and that the legal and organizational framework will be clarified as the concept develops. Not everyone was a fan of the idea. “The half-crazy von der Leyen is now verging to full blown madness setting up her own Brussels-grown CIA,” former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis posted on X.