Cybersecurity
CSA meets the ITRE Committee. The draft report on the Cyber Solidarity Act was presented on Tuesday in the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) by Rapporteur Lina Gálvez Muñoz. “At a time when cybersecurity threats are linked to the spread of insecurity among the population, the European Cyber Solidarity Act is more urgent than ever,” the rapporteur told Euractiv. “ I will work during the Spanish Presidency to improve safeguards, including democratic ones, for Member States to cooperate on cybersecurity and to further advance the EU’s open strategic autonomy,” she added.
Cyber Solidarity, what does that mean? While rapporteur Lina Gálvez Muñoz highlights the need for cyber solidarity, others call it into question. “From the perspective of European integration, it is a rather modest framework, which facilitates cross-border cooperation, in contrast to the EU becoming a ‘digital sovereign’ itself,” Dr Oskar Josef Gstrein, appointed as Theme Coordinator for Data Autonomy at the Jantina Tammes School of Digital Society, Technology and AI of the University of Groningen told Euractiv. “I think the Cyber Solidarity Act (CSA) can be understood as a capacity-building exercise of the EU, which stands next to member states initiatives in this area,” he added. According to Dr Gstrein, the CSA has to be considered together with other comprehensive overhauls of the cybersecurity governance landscape, such as implementing the NIS2 directive, which must be fully implemented by 18 October 2024.