The European Commission unveiled the new cybersecurity  strategy on December 16, in a bid to strengthen the bloc’s digital resilience. On the strategy, the EU proposes the creation of a joint national security authority unit and another one to deal with incidents.

The news arrived a few days after the European Medicines Agency suffered a cyber attack, when regulatory submissions of the COVID-19 vaccine were hacked.

The Commission says it will deliver towards the digital transformation of societies and economies by investing on infrastructure and skills capable of safeguarding the digital realm.

This includes an “EU-wide Cyber Shield” connecting national security authorities through the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to boost situational awareness and detect early signs of attacks.

Also, the Commission announced it will secure the next generation of 5G networks and it urged member states to complete the implementation of the EU’s recommendations on 5G.

The EU’s new strategy also foresees a cyber unit to respond to incidents and threats, and improved cooperation between member states and with organisations like NATO.

“The digital transformation is accelerating, but it can only succeed if people and businesses can trust that the connected products and services - on which they rely – are secure," said Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.

Critical infrastructures

The aim of the new strategy is to capacitate a joint resilience against cyber threats while ensuring that “citizens and businesses can fully benefit from trustworthy and reliable services and digital tools”, says the Commission.

On the strategy, the Commission proposes legislation to deal with critical entities covering ten sectors. These include energy, transport, banking, financial market infrastructures, health, drinking water, water waste, digital infrastructure, public administration and space.

“Cyber attacks are part of our reality. Just like we do in the physical world, we need to protect our democratic institutions, our public services, our hospitals and our industry,” expressed the Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton on Twitter.

Next Steps

Further examinations to the proposed legislation are still to happen between the Parliament and the Council.

As soon as the proposals are agreed and adopted, EU countries have 18 months to implement them.

An agreement is expected in the early months of 2021.

On 1 December 2020, PSCE organised a Fireside Chat, an exclusive event for our members to discuss ongoing activities and future plans. Our internal chat featured 11 speakers around industry, academia and end-users’ organizations.

Given the impossibility of personal meetings, PSCE’s Fireside Chat provided the right occasion to highlight issues and challenges in the public safety, security and crisis management fields. During our internal webinar, PSCE’s membership presented innovative applications of new technologies and held discussions on structural solutions for the public safety sector.

PSCE, has part of the Search & Rescue project, is organising a clustering webinar gathering 7 projects on the topic of end-user requirements for first responders technologies, to take place on December 3rd 2020 in the afternoon. Around 120 partners from the consortia involved have registered. The 7 participating projects are:

• SEARCH&RESCUE
• CURSOR
• ASSISTANCE
• RESPONDRONE
• SIXTHSENSE
• RESPOND-A
• INGENIOUS

The objective of the webinar is (i) to allow projects to get to know other project better and to discuss on the topic of end-user requirements (process used/challenges encountered/preliminary findings). The webinar is a closed event but resutls will be made publicly available. Stay tuned!

On November 27, 2020, the BroadWay innovation procurement project (pre-commercial procurement) presented its objectives and its intermediary results to the European Commission DGs: DG Echo, DG Home, DG Connect, Defis and Taxud, Agencies: Eu-Lisa, Frontex, the European GNSS Agency, and the European Investment Bank.

It was an opportunity to highlight the need for Operational Mobility for public safety and what it could achieve for PPDR in cross-border and pan-European operations.

Simultaneously as the competitive life cycle of BroadWay progresses, Member States are developing their own national strategies for the deployment of broadband for their critical communications.

The industry has also heavily invested in the development of mobile standards for Mission Critical Services and the development of the BroadWay solutions contribute to catalyse a European industrial ecosystem for PPDR.

The conjunction of these elements, as well as the intermediary results of the BroadWay solutions, currently being developed in Phase 2 (Prorotype Solution) by the 3 industrial consortia in competition, is a sign of high confidence for the success of BroadWay.

For details about the Broadway PCP’s progress, please click here: www.broadway-info.eu

Further details about broader PSCE activities and conferences can be found on our website: www.psc-europe.eu

PSCE’s next conference will be held online on 19-20 January, discussing further the topic of Space Applications for PPDR, Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Security and how PPDR organisations are adapting to our Climate Emergency. You can register here: https://www.psc-europe.eu/news-events/events/psce-virtual-conference.html