Brussels, 22/06/2016 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is gearing up to launch a public private partnership to strengthen digital security in Europe. This cooperation is expected to be presented over the next few weeks and will be signed by the European Commission and representatives from the industry on 5 July in Strasbourg.
This initiative is one of 16 single digital market strategy initiatives. Its objective is to strengthen European strategic autonomy in the context of the digital security industry and put an end to the current fragmentation in this area. The Commission is expected to earmark several hundreds of millions of euro as part of the Horizon 2020 programme and the industry is expected to make a commitment on the same scale.
According to European Commission figures, the global market in cyber security related products was worth around US $65.9 billion in 2013 (with the European market accounting for 17% of this) and is expected to reach a figure of around 80-120 billion dollars in 2018. The European market is currently dominated by a small group of global providers competing with a larger number of smaller European providers mainly at national and regional levels.
In this context, the Commission is seeking to present a cyber security package, which is very likely to be during the last week of June. This will be based on a general communication and decision establishing a public-private partnership as a flagship measure for the initiative. The Communication will support European cooperation, particularly by way of a European certification system. The decision will also be accompanied by different annexes, including working documents, the result of the public consultation carried out from 18 December to 11 March 2016 and the agreement to be signed by the two parties. On its website, the Commission indicates "This partnership seeks to strengthen the European security industry and ensure that citizens and businesses have access to more innovative, safer and more user-friendly solutions that take into account European rules and values". The partnership will be open to all interested and eligible parties: businesses (including SMEs), universities, research bodies, including foreign companies with research and innovation facilities based in the EU as well as in countries involved in the Horizon 2020 programme (such as Switzerland, Israel and Norway).
This initiative completes the public private partnerships that have already been set up as part of Horizon 2020, particularly those on photonics, robotics, high-performance calculations, advanced 5G networks for the Internet and factories of the future. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)