The European Commission released its thirteenth progress report that outlines progress made in delivering the legislative priorities related to the Security Union.
Among its most important contents, work has started in the Parliament (LIBE committee) and Council on the proposals regarding interoperability of information systems for security, border and migration management. Trilogues are being held on the proposal to establish a European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS), as well as on the proposals to strengthen the Schengen Information System (SIS). Efforts to step up information exchanges among Europol, Member States and third parties are yielding results - in 2017, more than one million SIENA messages were exchanged.
In its latest plenary session, the European Parliament adopted a mandate to enter into negotiation on the Commission proposal to strengthen the mandate of eu-LISA. The Council and the Parliament also reached an agreement on the Commission's proposal to amend the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive, which should be published in the Official Journal by mid-2018.
On cybersecurity, the Commission is consulting stakeholders and is working towards an Impact Assessment for a legislative proposal to establish a Network of Cybersecurity Competence Centres. The Commission is planning to launch a call for proposals in the first quarter of 2018 towards a pilot project of EUR 50 million to support the network’s creation.
On radicalisation, the Commission is following the work of the dedicated expert group to step up initiatives on countering radicalisation. The Commission is also promoting cooperation with platforms to detect and remove terrorist and other illegal content online and it organised two workshops in December 2017 on projects related to radicalisation and cybercrime.
On cyber defence, the annual EU-NATO high level staff-to-staff cyber consultations took place last month. The EEAS also held an exercise with the Member States to operationalise the Implementation Guidelines of the EU Framework for Joint Diplomatic Response to Cyber Attacks by state and non-state actors.
The full text can be found here.