Welcomed 15 new members and exchange of views with the European Commission

The European Cyber Security Organisation (ECSO) held its 14thBoard of Directors meeting on 20 March at its premises in Brussels, Belgium. The agenda of the meeting included the approval of new members, strategic discussions on the ECSO governance, as well as the exchange of views on cyber security situation in Europe between the ECSO Board of Directors and the European Commission representatives, who joined the meeting.

During the meeting, 15 new members have been officially granted membership in the ECSO, including:

• Pylones (Greece)
• i4-Flame OÜ (Estonia)
• Intertek NTA (United Kingdom)
• University of Oslo (UiO) (Norway)
• University of Tartu (Estonia)
• i2CAT (Spain)
• Perseus (Germany)
• Avnet Silica (Germany)
• ICT Skillnet (Ireland)
• Institute of Social Reflection –ISR (Hungary)
• Cyber Security Coalition (Belgium)
• Eni (Italy)
• Welsh Government (United Kingdom)
• Council of European Professional Informatics Societies –CEPIS (Belgium)
• Insta DefSec (Finland)

This day, ECSO unites 250 organisations from 29countries. If counting 23 member associations, ECSO gathers a community of more than 2000 entities.

The Board approved the ECSO position paper on “The role of the regions in strengthening the European Union’s cyber security”, available here, as well as the initial areas of interest for cyber security for dual-use technologies. The Board also approved the recently elected or re-elected Chairs of the ECSO Working Groups:

• Javier Diéguez, Director, Basque Cybersecurity Centre–Chair of the Working Group 2
• Ulrich Seldeslachts, Executive Director, LSEC –Chair of the Working Group 2
• Charlotte Graire, Head of Business Development & Alliances, Airbus Cyber Security –Chair of the Working Group 3
• Annie Audic, Project Director ‘Continuum Training, Research, Innovation’, Brittany Region –Chair of the Working Group 4
• Juha Remes, CEO, Finnish Information Security Cluster (FISC)–Chair of the Working Group 4
• Sebastiano Toffaletti, Secretary General, European Digital SME Alliance–Chair of the Working Group 4.

Following the successful launch of the ECSO Women4Cyber initiative on 22 January 2019, the Board agreed on establishing a private foundation for the Women4Cyber to ensure the continuity of the initiative under ECSO leadership and to provide opportunities for funding. Finally, the Board meetings was attended by Ms Despina Spanou, Director for Digital Society, Trust and Cybersecurity at the European Commission, who, on behalf of the European Commission, discussed the recently adopted EU Cybersecurity Act, the Commission’s proposal to create a European Union Cybersecurity Competence Centre and Network and the future of the Public-Private Partnership on cyber security.