Brussels is a place where security strategies of different kinds proliferate. Long-time followers of the EU will remember the 2003 European Security Strategy and its 2008 implementation report. 

Then, in 2016, came the EU Global Strategy. In addition to these, the EU has published multiple sector-specific strategies such as the 2013 cybersecurity strategy, and the 2014 maritime security strategy, to name a few. 

On 24 July, the European Commission published the latest addition to the collection of EU strategies, the new EU Security Union Strategy (SUS). 

It’s a response to then-Commission president candidate Ursula von der Leyen’s political guidelines for the current commission, and the mandate that her mission letter to commission vice-president Margaritis Schinas gave to him to develop an integrated and comprehensive approach to security. 

The SUS is a broad, cross-sectoral document that seeks to overcome old dichotomies between online and offline security, digital and physical security, and internal and external security. 

It’s a response to the sophisticated cross-border and cross-sectorial threats that require more and more room on the EU’s security agenda. These include terrorism, cybercrime, hybrid attacks, and disinformation campaigns, to name a few. 

The SUS is also shaped by the ongoing fight against the novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic. 

It notes that Covid-19 has reshaped our notion of safety and security threats, and highlighted the need to guarantee security both in the physical and digital environments. 

Covid-19 has also underlined the importance of secure supply chains, and reinforced the need to engage everyone in an effort to boost the EU’s resilience. The SUS is therefore also a product of its time. 

Although the SUS doesn’t explicitly define what a Security Union is, it does provide suggestions on how a Security Union should be conceptualised. 

Commissioner Schinas described the SUS as a new house with a single roof, within which the EU seeks to build a new security ecosystem that covers the entire policy spectrum. 

This is because the SUS lays the foundations for this work by identifying four priority areas for EU-level action. These are a future proof security environment, evolving threats, terrorism and organised crime, and a European security ecosystem.