Hybrid and cybersecurity threats and the European Union’s financial system

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Hybrid and cybersecurity threats and the European Union’s financial system

The authors document the rise in hybrid threats and cyber attacks in the European Union. Exploring preparations to increase the resilience of the fina

Publishing date: 12 September 2019
Authors: Guntram B. Wolff Maria Demertzis

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Increasing cyber and hybrid risks will test the European Union’s system of fragmentation on issues of security but centralisation on financial and other economic issues. This asymmetry was not an obstacle in a world in which security threats were more contained or of a different nature. But the world is changing.

We document the rise in cyber attacks in the European Union. Meanwhile, hybrid threats, involving conventional and non-conventional means, are real, though difficult to quantify. We explore preparations to increase the resilience of the financial system in terms of regulation, testing and governance. We find that at the individual institutional level, significant measures have been taken, even though there are diverging views on whether individual companies are sufficiently prepared. More worryingly, preparations appear less advanced at the system-wide level.

We recommend that EU finance ministers increase resilience of the financial system through regular preparedness exercises and greater consideration of system-wide regulatory issues. We also consider it necessary to advance a broader political discussion on the integration of the EU security architecture applicable to the financial system. This includes reopening the framework on foreign-investment screening in order to ensure screening of foreign investment in critical financial infrastructure at the EU level.

About the authors

Guntram B. Wolff

Guntram Wolff is a Senior fellow at Bruegel. He is also a Professor of Economics at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB).

From 2022-2024, he was the Director and CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and from 2013-22 the director of Bruegel. Over his career, he has contributed to research on European political economy, climate policy, geoeconomics, macroeconomics and foreign affairs. His work was published in academic journals such as Nature, Science, Research Policy, Energy Policy, Climate Policy, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of Banking and Finance. His co-authored book “The macroeconomics of decarbonization” is published in Cambridge University Press.

An experienced public adviser, he has been testifying twice a year since 2013 to the informal European finance ministers’ and central bank governors’ ECOFIN Council meeting on a large variety of topics. He also regularly testifies to the European Parliament, the Bundestag and speaks to corporate boards. In 2020, ranked him one of the 28 most influential “power players” in Europe. From 2012-16, he was a member of the French prime minister’s Conseil d’Analyse Economique. In 2018, then IMF managing director Christine Lagarde appointed him to the external advisory group on surveillance to review the Fund’s priorities. In 2021, he was appointed member and co-director to the G20 High level independent panel on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response under the co-chairs Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Lawrence H. Summers and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. From 2013-22, he was an advisor to the Mastercard Centre for Inclusive Growth. He is a member of the Bulgarian Council of Economic Analysis, the European Council on Foreign Affairs and advisory board of Elcano. He is also a fellow at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Guntram joined Bruegel from the European Commission, where he worked on the macroeconomics of the euro area and the reform of euro area governance. Prior to joining the Commission, he worked in the research department at the Bundesbank, which he joined after completing his PhD in economics at the University of Bonn. He also worked as an external adviser to the International Monetary Fund. He is fluent in German, English, and French. His work is regularly published and cited in leading media.
Maria Demertzis

Maria Demertzis is a Leader at ESF, The Conference Board Europe, former Senior fellow at Bruegel and part-time Professor of Economic Policy at the Florence School of Transnational Governance at the European University Institute. She was Bruegel’s Deputy Director until December 2022. She has previously worked at the European Commission and the research department of the Dutch Central Bank. She has also held academic positions at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in the USA and the University of Strathclyde in the UK, from where she holds a PhD in economics. She has published extensively in international academic journals and contributed regular policy inputs to both the European Commission's and the Dutch Central Bank's policy outlets. She contributes regularly to national and international press and has regular column that appears twice a month in various EU newspapers and on Bruegel’s opinion page.