The third interinstitutional meeting on the pooling of cybersecurity expertise, which was scheduled to take place on Thursday 28 March in Strasbourg, is likely to be postponed. After the meeting of the Committee of Representatives held the day before, the Romanian Presidency of the EU Council wished to replace it with a technical meeting in order to obtain certain clarifications.
This draft regulation, presented in September 2018, aims to pool and share cybersecurity research capabilities and results and to deploy innovative cybersecurity solutions (see EUROPE 12095/18). Three new structures are envisaged: a European centre of industrial, technological and research competence at EU level; a network of national coordination centres at national level; and a community of cybersecurity expertise at actor level.
At this stage, the negotiating teams have already met twice, on 13 March for an introductory meeting and on 20 March to discuss the missions and tasks of the centre, funding and the Management Board. But these meetings were not conclusive.
The Romanian Presidency hoped to obtain a renewed mandate from the EU ambassadors on the eve of the third meeting, but this was not the case; according to our information, the Twenty-Seven has called for clarification of the nature of the centre, its financing and its location. It therefore asked to postpone the trilogue until next week. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)