Warsaw, 21/09/2011 (Agence Europe) - Threat diversification, civil security development in all its aspects and continuity between internal and external security - such were the watchwords of the three-day 6th annual Security Research Conference (SRC) in Warsaw on 19-21 September. This year's SRC provided an opportunity to present the European Commission's 5th call for proposals for research projects in the civil security sector (FP7-SEC-2012), with a total budget of €1.4 billion.
The aim of the conference was to bring representatives from public and private companies, research institutes and centres, end-users, as well as police forces and customs services, into contact with each other.
This last aspect, user integration in the research process and the creation of new technologies, is without a doubt the most important breakthrough achieved by the series of conferences, said Marco Malacarne, Head of Unit for Security, Research and Development within the Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry of the European Commission. He was speaking during the first session on Tuesday 20 September.
Essential trends in public security during the SRC 2011 were perhaps best expressed by the executive director of the European agency for the management of operational cooperation at external borders (Frontex), Ilkka Laitinen. Frontex must act on many fronts. Its work does not simply involve identity checks at borders. Cooperation with other agencies is also a central aspect of the agency's work. Combating organised crime, terrorism, human trafficking and cybercrime - these are only a few of the areas covered by the agency, Ilkka Laitinen pointed out. Laitinen also set out the agency's research priorities, with technological advances taking second place after the development of administrative procedures and border controls, given that technology alone cannot entirely ensure, for example, that identities are correctly checked, if the passport issuing entity is not reliable. This therefore highlights the fact that security and control processes must be made uniform. “The more uniform rules and acts are in Europe, the stronger we become,” the director of Frontex said.
The same point was also raised by Poland's Minister for Science and Higher Education Barbara Kudrycka, who affirmed during the opening session that, alongside technological development, procedures at international level seem to be the most urgent challenge to be faced. Furthermore, citing the areas of energy supply security, food, communication, transport, public health and borders as being of high importance for a state, the minister simply underlined an opinion largely shared by the other participants regarding the far-reaching sphere of civil security. The threats that face our societies today are described as being increasingly diversified, while being less visible than before and more difficult to identify. “We are facing some of these threats for the first time” and thus, to be able to act effectively, the crucial role of research and innovation takes on great importance, Kudrycka said.
The new framework programme for research and innovation, Horizon 2020, for which talks have just begun, should allow all the instruments currently available to the EU to be brought together to ensure greater uniformity of the European market, Kudrycka said. The president of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, hoped that MEPs would show enthusiasm for the Horizon 2020 project. The budget devoted to these fields will also grow considerably, as set out in the new financial framework (2014-2020) with a total budget of nearly €80 billion, €26 billion more than the 7th framework programme. Furthermore, 20% of civil security projects financed by the EU were proposed by SMEs, the highest percentage throughout the 7th framework programme, stressed Paul Wiessenberg from the Commission. He also added that EU funding in this field was responsible for half of public subsidies granted in Europe for this purpose, which allowed him to say that the EU is gradually gaining an identity in the security area.
This tendency should be strengthened, Jerzy Buzek says, citing five points that he considers essential in the new security research funding strategy: - giving preference to SMEs; - creating public-private partnerships; - simplifying access to European funding; - protecting personal data; - and associating security research with common security and defence policy. The last point can be explained by the fact that threats from inside the EU are consistent with those from outside the EU. The European Parliament president felt it was necessary to integrate all instruments such as the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Defence Agency (EDA) because crisis management, humanitarian
assistance and the surveillance of borders are all linked to EU foreign policy and are part of internal security problems. Having a true common security and defence policy is therefore a necessity if threats other than those of a military kind are to be faced. That is why NATO cannot guarantee EU security on its own, Buzek said. (JK/transl.jl)