On Monday 16 May, the French Presidency of the Council of the EU (FPEU) submitted to the Member States its draft conclusions on the development of a European ‘cyber posture’.
The paper firstly calls for strengthening cyber resilience and protection capabilities and stresses the need for a rapid implementation of the ‘NIS2’ directive, which should lead to a common high level of cyber security across the EU. A provisional political agreement was reached between the European Parliament and the Council of the EU on 12 May (see EUROPE 12952/1).
In addition, the document also calls on Member States to “redouble their efforts” to increase the overall level of cyber security, including through investment in innovation. This would also, the paper stresses, help to increase the EU’s technological sovereignty.
Furthermore, the draft conclusion of the EUFP also stresses the need to strengthen “joint and comprehensive” crisis management through testing, operational cooperation and knowledge sharing, through already established networks such as the Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) or the Cyber Crises Liaison Organisation Network (EU CyCLONe).
Finally, the document also addresses the issue of cooperation with international organisations and partners. On this point, the draft conclusion reaffirms the commitment of Member States to better “link the EU strategy on capacity building in cyberspace with the UN norms on responsible behaviour of Member States in cyberspace”, including by developing appropriate cooperation and capacity building programmes to support third countries in their implementation processes.
Similarly, the document - recalling the joint EU-NATO declarations of Warsaw in 2016 and Brussels in 2018 - emphasises strengthening cyber cooperation with NATO through exercises and sharing of information gathered.
See the draft conclusions: https://aeur.eu/f/1sa (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)