Shared threats, shared resilience: Integrating enlargement partners in EU digital and cyber security
fanny.pollet@i…
Tue, 05/26/2026 – 14:46
9 minutes
Gaps in cyber and digital resilience in the EU neighbourhood pose a direct threat to European security. Cyberattacks and digital dependencies have become core instruments of coercion, destabilisation and influence across the EU’s wider neighbourhood, targeting government services, critical infrastructure, electoral processes, supply chains and the information space(1). At the same time, digital infrastructures and data flows are inherently cross-border, binding enlargement partners and EU Member States into a shared and interdependent digital environment.
Yet digital policy and cybersecurity in the enlargement context remains largely embedded in a gradual, compliance-driven accession process, focused on regulatory alignment and unevenly implemented across enlargement partners in the Western Balkans and the Eastern Neighbourhood. This approach sits uneasily with a fast-moving and transnational threat landscape. It hampers the capacity to respond collectively to shared threats, as cooperation remains fragmented and often reactive. Existing EU cybersecurity frameworks provide a basis for integration, but continue to expose shortcomings in capacity, coordination …read more