Cyber sanctions: Strengthening EU–UK responses to escalating threats
Cyberattacks have become an increasingly central instrument of geopolitical competition, posing growing risks to the security, economic stability and democratic institutions of both the European Union and the United Kingdom. In response, both sides have developed cyber sanctions regimes as part of broader strategies to respond to malicious cyber activity. While the EU benefits from significant regulatory reach, its cyber sanctions framework has been constrained by challenges related mainly to the coordination of attribution, information sharing, decision-making and enforcement. The UK regime, by contrast, offers greater agility and operational integration, supported by strong intelligence capabilities and private sector links while depending even more on the close cooperation with international partners.
EU–UK cooperation on sanctions has remained strong after Brexit and provides a solid basis for further collaboration in the cyber domain. Given the increasing scale and sophistication of cyber threats in an increasingly challenging geopolitical climate, deeper coordination could unlock additional synergies and amplify the impact of sanctions as part of a wider response to malicious cyber operations.
This paper proposes eight recommendations to strengthen EU and UK approaches to cyber sanctions and enhance coordination between them:
1. Strengthen Europe’s autonomous cyber threat intelligence capacity;
2. Reinforce coordination on attribution policy and intelligence sharing;
3. Consider qualified majority voting and coalitions of the willing for sanctions decisions;
4. Expand public exposure and attribution as complementary disruption tools;
5. Target the broader ecosystems enabling hostile cyber operations more;
6. Strengthen cooperation with the private sector while reducing strategic dependencies;
7. Build sustained sanctions campaigns around coherent strategic narratives;
8. Improve early warning and strategic coordination on cyber sanctions between the EU and the UK.
Taken together, these steps could help increase the ability of sanctions to raise the costs of malicious cyber activity and more effectively deter and disrupt the networks that enable hostile cyber operations.
Read the full Policy Brief here.
Philipp Lausberg is a Senior Policy Analyst in the European Political Economy Programme at the European Policy Centre and leads the EPC’s EU sanctions project.
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