Remarks by Executive Vice-President Virkkunen and Commissioner Brunner on the European Internal Security Strategy
European Commission
Speech
Apr 01, 2025
Strasbourg
"Check against delivery"
Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen:
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
We have adopted today an ambitious new European Strategy for our Internal Security, ProtectEU. Commissioner Brunner and I will provide you with an overview of the Strategy and answer your questions in a moment.
Europe has long been a beacon of freedom, security and prosperity, grounded in the rule of law, democracy, and shared values. We remain steadfast in our commitment to upholding these core values.
In today's rapidly evolving world, our security landscape has changed. The threats we face are larger, more global, and increasingly online.
Ranging from powerful organised crime networks and terrorism, to hybrid threats fuelled with disinformation, fear, and sabotage to our critical infrastructure. Often by hostile foreign state actors.
Our citizens expect us to act: 64 per cent are troubled about the EU's security.
No Member State can tackle these challenges alone. We need a powerful, coordinated European response.
The Internal Security Strategy is our response. It is a key milestone in the new era of Defence and Security for the European Union.
Together with the White Paper on the Future of Defence, the Preparedness Union Strategy and the forthcoming Democracy Shield, ProtectEU sets the vision for a safe, secure and resilient EU.
Over the past decade, we have made significant progress in building a solid European internal security architecture. With many achievements. However, the scale and complexity of threats require us to go further.
This strategy lays out a clear and ambitious workplan for the coming years.
With concrete measures to enhance the EU's resilience and the collective ability to anticipate, detect, prevent and respond to all threats.New and old, offline and online.
We will sharpen and modernise our legal toolbox, notably revising the mandates for our EU agencies, that are so crucial to support Member State authorities: Europol of course, but also Eurojust, Frontex and ENISA - the EU cybersecurity agency.
We will equip the EU with new ways of combining and sharing information and improving our anticipation and reaction capacity. With regular EU internal security threat analyses. And a new system of governance at EU level.
The EU is a place of freedom and security.
We have the strongest protections and checks and balances in the world. The Commission has always championed the rule of law, protection of fundamental rights and of privacy. This is the foundation for our democracies and we will continue defending that strongly.
At the same time, we also need to make sure Europeans are safe and that criminals are not free riding.
Today around 85% of criminal investigations rely on law enforcement authorities' ability to access digital information.
The authorities need to be able to investigate and take action against crimes. We need therefore a framework for lawful access to data. But one which does not undermine cybersecurity. We need to ensure that digital systems remain secure from unauthorised access and that privacy is protected.
Rule of law, privacy, security. This is what we stand for and what we will defend and promote with the upcoming initiatives.
And we will build resilience against hybrid attacks. We will revise the Cybersecurity Act, help Member States implement the new rules on critical infrastructure, and strengthen transport security.
We will launch a new Nordic/Baltic regional hub for integrated surveillance of submarine cables—a direct response to growing vulnerabilities in our digital infrastructure.
Another key priority of this strategy is to reduce the EU's reliance on third-country technologies, especially in strategic fields like AI, quantum computing, and post-quantum cryptography. This is critical for securing our digital future and technological autonomy.
And in everything we will do, from tackling terrorism and organised crimes to the new threats, fundamental rights protection will be a priority.
We encourage the co-legislators to complete essential legislative work on child sexual abuse. In parallel, we will continue to enforce the Digital Services Act - we will hold platforms accountable for their role in online security.
Finally, Europe will continue playing a strong, multilateral role globally. We are committed to strengthening partnerships with third countries, contributing to global security and ensuring our collective safety.
The success of this strategy relies on its robust implementation. It relies also on a real change of culture, on a whole of society approach, where each citizen, civil society, researchers, businesses feels concerned. As President Niinisto put it, security is a public good. We need to jointly protect it.
The Commission will take its part. We will mainstream security in all our initiatives. And we will work very closely with everyone to transform our work program in reality on the ground. For a strong and autonomous European security.
I will now give the floor to my colleague Magnus, with whom we worked very closely to put forward this ambitious strategy. Which has been a genuine 'whole of Commission' approach.
Commissioner Magnus Brunner:
Good afternoon everyone,
Thank you, Henna, also for the good cooperation on this file. Because what we are presenting today is very much a joint product, and a shared vision for how we can make Europe more secure for all the people who live within it.
Security is very much the task of our times.
It is the starting point from which all our freedoms derive: prosperity, democracy, and the rule of law.
A lot has been done over the last decade to start building a European security apparatus. But the nature of today's threats requires us to go further, and I am convinced that together, we can rise to the challenge.
Let me highlight six elements.
I will start where Henna ended.
The ProtectEU strategy takes as its starting point that we need to change the way we do things on security.
The threats we are facing are constantly evolving, and it is time our response evolved too.
And we are starting with ourselves - that means shaking up the way we do things in the Commission and pooling the knowledge and focusing the energy of our services towards our common security.
First, you have seen it with the creation of the Security College.
Second, you see it in the large number of services that have contributed to this Strategy. This is a true team effort.
And third, you can see it up here on this podium. Henna is not only our Executive Vice-President, she is also in charge of DG CONNECT, and I am in charge of DG HOME. But when it comes to working on things like protecting children online, or keeping our critical infrastructure secure, we can only succeed by working very closely together.
And beyond that, from now on the Commission will factor in security considerations into all our policies. From inception to implementation.
And we will develop a new threat analysis that will allow us to calibrate and readjust our priorities in a more agile way based on a clearer picture of what is needed.
The second thing we need to do is strengthen our capabilities.
I often hear the sentence that "criminals are always one step ahead". This is not hard for them to do, if law enforcement authorities are not equipped or have their hands tied.
The ProtectEU strategy aims to give law enforcement the tools they need to act.
Part of this is the support they get from EU Agencies like Europol, and Frontex. Next year we will present new mandates for both.
The same can also be true for data access and encryption. We need to equip our law enforcement with the tools they need to do their job, and the evidence they need to secure convictions.
And with Henna, we will work on the right and balanced solutions for that.
And we will look at presenting new EU rules on data retention - if this can be done in a way that improves Member States' ability to act.
Third, and as Henna detailed, we will build resilience against hybrid threats by enhancing the protection of critical infrastructure, reinforcing cybersecurity, securing transport hubs and combatting online threats.
Fourth, we will get serious about tackling organised crime.
Powerful organised crime networks are spreading in Europe, nurtured online and spilling violence onto our streets. They make money by infiltrating our economies and societies, and by running vast smuggling networks.
They operate across borders and so must we.
We will update the EU criminal code on organised crime and for the first time introduce a harmonised definition - and a set of penalties for the most dangerous criminal activities.
We will share information to get a better intelligence picture of organised crime. This will be the basis for the EU's sanction's regime against individuals and entities involved in organised crime, including entry bans and asset freezing.
These criminals need to know that there will be nowhere to hide in Europe.
And we will take specific measures to tackle the hugely profitable drug trade that feeds these groups, including a new Drugs Strategy and an expansion of the EU's ports alliance.
Fifth, we will introduce a comprehensive counter-terrorism agenda to prevent radicalisation, secure online and public spaces, throttle financing channels and respond to attacks when they occur.
The best way to counter terrorism is of course to stop attacks before they occur. This begins with the battle against the radicalisation of our youth. We see too often how the merchants of hate prey on children, with their twisted lies.
Henna and I are working on a dedicated strategy to protect children both from radicalisation and from falling into a life of crime.
New technology provides new tools for influencing. We need to hold tech companies to account when it comes to online content that is hateful, criminal and that radicalises our youth.
As Henna said, we are vigorously enforcing the Digital Services Act. And we need to complete our rules.
A final novelty in the strategy is that ProtectEU puts a strong accent on global action.
This is very important. The goal is to build a catalogue of security partnerships with third countries, similar to the EU-Brazil Europol cooperation agreement we recently signed.
This also led to the large cocaine bust two weeks ago in Ecuador: together with Europol and national customs and police authorities, the Ecuadorian police dismantled a criminal cell leading to 36 arrests after 73 tonnes of drugs were seized.
Going beyond that, we should engage in more 'security diplomacy', in other words, asserting our security interests as a part of all our dealings with third countries.
As you can see, ProtectEU has a high level of ambition.
Nothing less will do.
We need to become a less easy target for criminals. Our openness, tolerance and respect for rights must not be exploited to victimise people in the EU or elsewhere.
This strategy puts us on a good track.
Thank you.
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