EU Cyber Sanctions between Effectiveness and Strategy

This is the video recording of our online panel discussion on EU Cyber Sanctions we held on 4 February 2021 (excluding the Q&A). You can also listen to audio-only version via our podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or SoundCloud.

Speakers:
- Timo Koster, the former Dutch Ambassador-at-large for Security Policy & Cyber and former Director for Defence Policy and Capabilities at NATO HQ in Brussels;
- Erica Moret, Senior Researcher at the Centre for Global Governance and Visiting Lecturer at the Department of International Relations/Political Science at the Graduate Institute, Geneva;
- Stefan Soesanto, Senior Researcher in the Cyberdefense Project within the Risk and Resilience Team at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich;
- Fabio Cristiano (moderator), postdoctoral researcher at The Hague Program for Cyber Norms at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Leiden University.

Event description:
In October 2020, the European Union followed in the footsteps of the United States and imposed its cyber sanctions for the very first time. These are one of the instruments available in the Union’s cyber diplomacy toolbox and are specifically designed ‘to prevent, discourage, deter and respond to continuing and increasing malicious behaviour in cyberspace’.

While representing an important step forward for the Union’s commitment to uphold a ‘rules-based order’ in cyberspace as a single voice, the adoption of cyber sanctions raises however questions on their effectiveness and their broader strategic function.

Addressing these two aspects, this panel debate thus aims 1) to shed light on the current developments on cyber sanctions within the EU; 2) to interrogate their effectiveness as legal instruments; and 3) to explore how they intersect with the EU’s broader strategic and geopolitical role as normative power in cyberspace.