As Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in her State of the Union (on 16 September last), the attempted drone attack in Leipzig must be seen as a hybrid attack against the EU – an attack on one is an attack on all, be it a hybrid or conventional attack. But the EU still needs its own “counter-hybrid playbook”, as she called it, “a mechanism to flank NATO’s Article 4”.

This is the topic of the first panel of this expert seminar: What is the chain of command for collective attribution of and response to hybrid attacks? How to deter and to retaliate once the last Russian diplomat has been expelled and the last economic interaction has been terminated?

This leads to another issue put forward by the Commission President: a European Security Council. Can the states of Europe (EU Member States and NATO Allies combined) create an executive body, a “war cabinet”, that takes charge in times of crisis and war? This will be the question addressed by the second panel.

This seminar is part of the series of Ghent Grand Strategy Seminars, organised by Ghent University with the support of the Focus Group on Hybrid Threats of the Egmont Institute.

Program:

14.30–14.45 Welcome & Introduction

Prof. Dr Sven Biscop, Egmont Institute & Ghent University

14.45–16.15   Panel 1: A European Doctrine on Hybrid Attacks

Chair: Bernard Siman OBE, Head of Egmont’s Focus on Hybrid Threats

• Arnout Molenaar, IDEA, European Commission
• Dr Peter Pijpers, University of Amsterdam

16.15–16.45   Coffee

16.45–18.15   Panel 2: A European Security Council

Chair: Prof. Dr Sven Biscop

• Alexandros Yannis, Head of Strategic Planning, EEAS
• Dr Richard Whitman, University of Kent

(Photo credit: Canva Teams)