The European Digital and Telecommunications Ministers are due to meet in Luxembourg on Friday 6 June for the Telecommunications Council.
Two main texts are due to be adopted: conclusions on ‘reliable and resilient connectivity’, arising from the White Paper on the reform of European telecommunications networks (see EUROPE 13530/12), and recommendations for an ‘EU Blueprint on cybersecurity’ (see EUROPE 13593/9).
The latest version of the conclusions, dated 16 May, approved by the Member States’ ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) and published by ‘Agence Europe’, only differ a little from the latest compromise version, dated 4 April (see EUROPE 13617/13).
These very broad conclusions focus on the resilience of infrastructures and the need to ensure the integration of the European network and the telecommunications single market in order to strengthen European security.
Competitiveness has been relegated to second place in favour of strengthening existing networks and taking account of cybersecurity threats, especially those that are linked to foreign interference and climatic disasters.
The document retains the reference added earlier to “far reaching geopolitical implications on the (...) overall security environment” of threats to European networks and “the need to integrate this approach into the possible revision of the existing legal framework”.
It also retains the notion of “reducing the risks associated with communications networks” referring to “trusted suppliers, as defined in the ‘5G toolkit’, when deploying said networks”.
While not endorsing the vision of a connected collaborative computer network (‘3C network’) set out in the European Commission’s ‘White Paper’ (see EUROPE 13355/8), the authors of the text “take note” of this initiative and consider it to be of “strategic importance for safeguarding and advancing the EU’s digital sovereignty in an open manner”.
The IRIS satellite communications project still has “a critical role to play in bridging the connectivity gap in the Union” and improving “its independence from non-European providers of communications services”.
See the conclusions: https://aeur.eu/f/H60 (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)