More than meets the eye: the role of trust in EU intelligence cooperation ¹

Trust is one of the foremost conditions for international intelligence cooperation, yet it has seldom been operationalized in this context. Using a conceptual framework derived from interorganizational relations and sociological institutionalism, this article critically examines how trust influences EU intelligence cooperation. It concludes that trust plays a far bigger role in international intelligence cooperation than scholars and practitioners often assume. In the EU intelligence system, trust positively influences cooperation, mainly through goodwill and on a personal level. A shared occupational culture and collective identity within the European intelligence community provide an efficient basis for trust-based cooperation. By adopting a sociological approach, this article offers a more nuanced, multi-level understanding of the role of trust in international intelligence cooperation.