ECSO shares its vision in Italy and France for a European cybersecurity ecosystem
A public-private partnership, ECSO coordinates the development of the European Cybersecurity Ecosystem and supports the protection of the European Digital Single Market, ultimately contributing to the advancement of Europe’s digital sovereignty and strategic autonomy. With its participation in Italy’s ‘CONFSEC’ and France’s ’Une Europe innovante en région Bretagne’ events, ECSO provided a European perspective to a discussion at local level on cybersecurity, focusing on three key aspects: training, business and inclusiveness.
“When I was asked to create ECSO’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in 2016, I knew we had to start focusing also on local and national developments in cybersecurity, while considering a European approach”, stated Mr. Rebuffi at both events. “In a fragmented European cybersecurity ecosystem, we must adopt a bottom up approach, where training and inclusiveness play a fundamental role. With cybersecurity being a fast-evolving sector, citizens need to understand such digital transformation and benefit from it, not endure it. Public administrations, SMEs and startups also need to receive the necessary training on cybersecurity, which is why ECSO’s working groups also focus on education and training and support to SMEs”, he added, stressing the need to also be more inclusive. “We cannot undertake such transformation without involving the 50% of the world’s population: women. This is why ECSO founded Women4Cyber, which partners with training providers to have more women access trainings on cybersecurity”, he added.
Both the Italian and French audiences agreed on the need overcome the fragmented cybersecurity European ecosystem by providing education and training, but also investments. “We cannot talk about European digital sovereignty without considering investments in cybersecurity”, said Mr. Rebuffi. “ECSO is already taking action via its working group on market deployment, investments and international collaboration, and has recently announced with the European Investment Bank (EIB) a new pan-European cybersecurity investment instrument, but we must be more ambitious in Europe, otherwise we will not be able to maintain control of European data and create jobs linked to cybersecurity”, he concluded.
Concluding his contribution to the two events, ECSO’s Secretary General provided an overview on an important European Regulation, which entered into force in June 2021, kickstarting the creation of European Competence Centres for cybersecurity, as part of the 2021-2027 European policy agenda. On this topic, ECSO is in the best position to bring all stakeholders together to create the European Cybersecurity Community which can overcome the existing fragmentation among Member States and coordinate the need for common investments, policies and regulations on cybersecurity.
“Europe has the instruments at its disposal: let’s use them!”.
