MEPs on the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) took stock on Tuesday 29 November of the report for opinion by Finnish MEP Henna Virkkunen (EPP) on information security in the EU institutions, bodies and agencies.
“Part of the strategy must be that all EU institutions, agencies and bodies have the same structure, as they increasingly share information and data - classified, unclassified or sensitive - and have different rules”, said Virkkunen.
The Finnish MEP therefore advocates a ‘need to know’ approach, which would only allow those who need access to certain information to carry out their tasks to do so.
Among the other political groups in the European Parliament, the Greens/EFA, through Mikuláš Peksa (Czech), said that they supported many of the text’s provisions, such as the common minimum standards, the evaluation of contractors and subcontractors and the strengthened role of the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity.
However, the group is to table several amendments to avoid the frequent use of confidential classification of documents. “Increasingly, institutions want to classify information that should be public, such as contracts for vaccines. This is a problem when transparency is key”, said Peksa.
In addition, several amendments are also expected to be tabled by the Greens/EFA on access to documents and whistleblower protection.
The competences of the ITRE Committee - associated on this file - are mainly based on cybersecurity and smart information systems.
In addition, Ms Virkkunen is rapporteur for the other part of this dossier, on a common high level of cybersecurity in the EU institutions, bodies and agencies (see EUROPE 13066/5). (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)