Spying scandals: EU capitals on high alert ahead of June elections

Germany has been hit by espionage scandals in recent days, with several persons being arrested for allegedly spying for Russia and China, but the threat is prevalent across the bloc, with several national agencies sounding the alarm.  

Germany has recently made the headlines due to the espionage networks it uncovered. Last week, two persons were arrested for spying for Russia and planning attacks on military infrastructure, followed by the arrest on Monday of three people who were allegedly spying for China.

The spying scandals culminated on Tuesday when authorities arrested the aid of MEP Maximilian Krah, who is the AfD’s top candidate in June’s European Parliament elections, for spying for the Chinese government. 

On the same day, in Britain, two men were charged with handing over “articles, notes, documents or information” to China between 2021 and last year.

However, Germany and the United Kingdom are far from the only countries affected by spying scandals, and as the European elections approach, the threat of foreign interference looms large. 

The Commission recently proposed a new directive to combat the issue, given the dangers that foreign interference could pose for European democracy.

“We have to constantly bear in mind Putin will use disinformation and foreign interference as a weapon to divide Europe. This is also why we have proposed the Defence of Democracy directive to shed more light against the hidden foreign interference.” Transparency Commissioner Jourova said earlier this month.

At EUCO last week, Czechia reintroduced a proposal to curb Schengen travel for Russian diplomats and is seeking support for its proposal and the inclusion of Artyom Marchevsky, Viktor Medvedchuk and the Voice of Europe on the EU sanctions list.

The three are already on Czech sanctions list in connection with Russian interference in the European Parliament and elections.

“Now it has to go into working negotiations, so we will see how successful we will be,” Lipavsky told Czech media. The Czech Republic would like the Voice of Europe-related sanctions to be adopted before the 14th package is approved.

EU spy situation

The issue of spying came back into the spotlight in the European capitals after Russia invaded Ukraine, which led to a wave of expulsions of diplomats, diplomatic staff and individuals accused of spying.

European capitals are on high alert over this issue, which has recently disrupted the political agenda in some countries.

According to Spain’s state-run National Intelligence Centre (CNI), Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has dramatically increased Russia’s and China’s interest in gathering state intelligence from the West to gain a strategic political, military and diplomatic advantage.

The CNI’s report states, “The activity of hostile intelligence services continues to be a threat to Spain and its allies.”

Indeed, despite the purge that followed the invasion of Ukraine, the activities of foreign agents in the EU continue unabated, like in Vienna, now considered to be one of the epicentres of espionage.

Despite a stricter stance on espionage since 2022, Austria was hit by a major espionage scandal at the end of March involving a former Austrian intelligence officer who was accused of “systematically” passing secret information to the Russian authorities for years.

In France, a parliamentary report on foreign interference published in 2023 highlighted China’s “increasingly aggressive and malicious manoeuvres”, while lawmakers are currently considering a law to counter growing foreign interference.

Across the Alps, Italian intelligence considers China to be particularly active in manipulating public opinion in their favour, while in 2023, a Navy officer was sentenced to 30 years in prison for handing over classified documents to a Russian Embassy official.

In Scandinavia, Sweden and Denmark see China as the main intelligence threat against a backdrop of Sino-Russian rivalry for control of the Arctic, where they already engaged in security-threatening activities.

In neighbouring Finland, intelligence services revealed that Russia was trying to recruit asylum seekers as spies, prompting the country to close its border with Russia in mid-April and to consider a law that would exceptionally allow migrants to be turned back at the border.

New technologies decreased the presence of agents

In Germany, while before the war, there were around 100 Russian diplomats suspected of being agents accredited in the country, this number has since shrunk to just 20, an investigation by the Süddeutsche revealed earlier this month.

Putin’s intelligence services now have to operate with far fewer agents, and the Kremlin appears to have adopted a more confrontational approach and is increasingly relying on hybrid warfare and new technologies.

However, Germany’s domestic intelligence service, the Verfassungsschutz, warned that the level of espionage activities has nonetheless reached heights comparable to the Cold War due to the ongoing competition between China and Russia.  

“In the current multipolar disorder full of ambitious actors, we are confronted with several revanchist authoritarian regimes that are united and driven to varying degrees by a destructive thrust towards the liberal order,” President of the Verfassungsschutz, Thomas Haldenwang, warned on Monday. 

The threat of Russian aggression has reached new dimensions since Russia attacked Ukraine, as the Kremlin has adopted a more aggressive approach and increasingly relies on hybrid warfare, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told reporters last week. 

Commenting on the latest incidents, a former intelligence chief of a European country told Euractiv, “The more things change, the more they stay the same”.

“Third countries’ spying activities in Europe never stopped since the Cold War […] the only difference nowadays is the introduction of digital technologies, and here, the West has started lagging”, the former intelligence chief, who spoke on condition of unanimity, said.

“One could say the West is at a disadvantage as it no longer dominates digital technologies”, the former official noted, adding that special attention should be paid to “supranational non-state factors” such as social media platforms, which are now “equally important as big state powers”. 

“We want Meta in China but not TikTok in the West […], but the West has to realise that the rise of BRICs has altered the global geopolitical balances and, above all, the monopoly on decision-making”, the former official concluded.

(Edited by Sarantis Michalopoulos, Alice Taylor | Euractiv.com)

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