The United Kingdom will likely seek to continue its cyber defense cooperation with the European Union after it exits the EU, a British defense official said last week.
“I would imagine that when we leave the European Union, that may well be one of the types of cooperation that we will want to continue, frankly,” said Stephen Lovegrove, permanent secretary at the UK defense ministry. Cyber threats “do not really respect international boundaries very obediently and, as a result, we need to recognize that as being a transnational threat that the UK’s national interests are served by getting involved in.”
For now, the UK’s cyber role in the EU remains unchanged, said Lovegrove, the ministry’s most senior civil servant. Even though British voters approved “Brexit” in a June referendum, actual separation could take years of negotiation to implement.
“We are a member of the European Union until we are not a member of the European Union,” said Lovegrove, who spoke March 6 at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C.
Lovegrove also said the UK will seek to ensure that its cyber defense efforts with NATO are “additive,” not duplicative, of its collaboration with other countries. NATO and the EU agreed in December to work together more closely on cyber defense.
In other comments, Lovegrove said the UK spends 2.21 percent of its gross domestic product on defense, exceeding the 2 percent goal for NATO members, and that his country remains committed to increasing its defense spending by 0.5 percent a year above the inflation rate through 2020. Lovegrove expects that NATO will soon have to give more scrutiny to how its members are allocating their defense spending to ensure the alliance has the right overall mix.
“I think we need to fairly soon get into a more granular discussion … so that NATO as a whole can operate in a more holistic way with the right level of capabilities and skills,” he said. But for now, “let’s concentrate” on the 2 percent goal.