The Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union presented, to the Member States on Friday 4 June, its progress report on the proposal for a directive on measures to ensure a high common level of cybersecurity in the EU.
While the report was generally welcomed by the ministers, a number of issues remain sensitive. Some countries have recalled that the priority is above all a risk-based approach.
“My country was recently the victim of a cyber attack. It is imperative to work on cyber resilience to get out of this permanent threat “, explained Belgium, which, at the same time “welcomed the Commission’s proposal to modernise and improve cybersecurity systems”.
In addition - and this is a desire shared by several Member States - at the Telecommunications Council of the EU, the emphasis was placed on SMEs on several occasions. “Special attention should be paid to the inclusion of SMEs, but also to the inclusion of medium-sized enterprises. We need to target the right actors and not create huge administrative burdens, which would not be sustainable for our economies”, said Italy.
Although discussions on this sensitive issue remained short and terse, Slovenia, which will be in charge of leading the discussions on the dossier in the EU Council from July onwards, called for flexibility so that a political agreement in principle (‘general approach’) could be reached quickly.
Finally, the Luxembourg Prime Minister, Xavier Bettel, joined, “in solidarity, on behalf of the Benelux”, the demands of his Belgian and Dutch counterparts for a risk-based approach. He also called for cybersecurity to be included in the defence budget, saying that “cyber attacks are more dangerous than a number of other forms of attack”.
See the Portuguese Presidency progress report: https://bit.ly/2Sa6u4v (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)