By Chris Jones

By 2020, the European Union will have invested over €3 billion in the European Security Research Programme, which is supposed to develop “innovative technologies and solutions that address security gaps and lead to a reduction in the risk from security threats.”[1] In practice, the programme has been dominated by corporations and major national research institutes who seem intent on introducing a surveillance society in the name of public security – a particularly disturbing prospect in a Europe where increasingly illiberal governments are exploiting fears over terrorism and migration to ensure “exceptional and temporary powers [are] permanently embedded in ordinary criminal law.”[2]

The official name of the European Security Research Programme (ESRP) is “Secure societies – protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens”. It is worth €1.7 billion between 2014 and 2020 and is part of the €77 billion Horizon 2020 research and development budget. Its predecessor was part of the 2007-13 Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) and had a budget of €1.4 billion. European Security Research Programme: Lacking democracy and transparency weiterlesen →