The politics of information in EU internal security: information sharing by European agencies

The European Union is quietly emerging as a significant security actor in its own right (Bickerton et al. 2011; Curtin 2011). As evidenced by recurring legal and policy documents,1 EU policy on its own ‘internal’ security is taking shape bit-by-bit and in an accelerated fashion over the course of the past few years (see also Busuioc and Curtin 2011). Central to the EU internal security map is a growing role for intelligence-type agencies (see also chapter by Duke in this volume). European agencies, more broadly, play a central role in the enhanced sharing of information as they gather, process, and disseminate information among themselves, but also to the EU institutions (and other bodies), to and from the member states’ organizations, as well to external actors. In the words of the European Commission President, they act as ‘satellites — picking up signals on the ground, processing them, and beaming them back and forth’.2 In the field of internal security particularly, given the traditional resistance to broader delegations of power premised on the sensitivity of this field (Monar 2010, 239), the gathering, exchange, and analysis of information is a defining element of cooperation in this area.