The Slovenian Presidency of the EU Council published on Friday 8 October its draft conclusions to be formally adopted without further discussion on the creation of a joint cyber unit. This unit is intended to complement the EU’s coordinated response to cyber security incidents and crises.
The draft conclusions stress “the importance of cyber security in the EU”, following the health crisis which “highlighted the vulnerabilities and damage that can be caused by cyber incidents”.
However, this would not be at any cost. The text recalls that Member States must remain “primarily responsible for responding to large-scale cyber security incidents and crises affecting them”. This point was discussed in the European Parliament on 1 July (see EUROPE 12753/10).
Furthermore, the text recalls that, despite the “indispensable” nature of cybersecurity to guarantee “prosperity and security”, one of the priorities remains “respect for the competences of the Member States and their sole responsibility for national security”.
Still on the subject of respect for national competences, the draft compromise stresses the need to avoid “unnecessary duplication” by ensuring that the joint unit is aligned with “existing mechanisms, initiatives, networks, processes, and procedures at national and European level”.
The document also stresses the principles of “mutual assistance and solidarity” and calls on the Member States to set out the processes, stages, and timetable for the creation of the common unit.
The draft conclusion had been discussed in September by the members of the horizontal group ‘Cyberspace Issues’ (see EUROPE 12798/10).
See the draft conclusions: https://bit.ly/3oKWvke (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)