ECSO outlines the priorities for European cybersecurity investments with leading EU experts
The panel discussion held during the event “Million dollar baby: what’s next for EU funding in cybersecurity?” organised by FIC, saw ECSO’s involvement together with DG CONNECT’s Cybersecurity Unit, ECSO Members the Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium and Ace Capital, and addressed important questions, spanning from cybersecurity stakeholders’ latest priorities, digital sovereignty linked to European and public-private funding instruments, existing investment gaps, success stories and best practices that can lead to a unified and competitive European cybersecurity market.
Cybersecurity is now a central focus for the EU, national governments, regional authorities and the private sector. Increasing the EU’s cyber resilience requires capacity building, strengthening infrastructure, supporting businesses and research, thus ultimately funding. In this framework, ECSO has long been addressing the topic of cybersecurity investments in Europe to build a strong and competitive European cybersecurity market, where businesses, especially SMEs and start-ups, can thrive.
“Before talking about investments in cybersecurity, we need to understand the real needs at local, regional and Member State level”, said ECSO Secretary General Luigi Rebuffi. “At ECSO we foster a bottom-up approach with many practical activities, ranging from our Cyber Investor Days and European Cybersecurity STARtup Award competition events, to activities related to youth in cybersecurity (Youth4Cyber) and six working groups that gather the cybersecurity community to provide input to the European Commission for funding programmes, cooperate with institutions such as the European Investment Bank on background studies for investments, and much more”, he added. “It was a pleasure to attend this event and exchange views with fellow cybersecurity colleagues, who shared valuable input that demonstrated that ECSO and its Members are moving in the right direction”, he concluded.
During the panel, speakers addressed other topics, such as current European funding programmes, cybersecurity legislation, education and more.
To find out more about ECSO’s work, visit our website at https://www.ecs-org.eu/
