The Edward Snowden revelations were “a wakeup call” and should not cause the EU Cyber Security Strategy to be “diluted”.
Speaking at the Trust in the Digital World event in Vienna, Zoran Stancic, deputy director general of DG Connect at the European Commission said that the pillars of the cyber security strategy were interlinked but headlines have caused the European Commission to get its “checks and balances right”.
Stancic said that trust and security are relevant to all levels of society, and called for shared solutions and a common approach to the problem. “Industry can resolve individual vulnerabilities and threats, but this is costly and inefficient when we are faced with multitudes of risks.” He said that the revelations called for a new perspective in how the Cyber Security Strategy was relevant to Europe.
He said that progress was being made but “not as fast as we would like to see” as the European Parliament prepares to change and “clear their drawers”. He said: “We cannot afford to dilute directives that we are not going to meet, and we cannot lower the level of expectation. We are still working with key member states to discuss how we get to our target and see how we can work and share together in an efficient way.
“It is not just discussing the Cyber Security Strategy or directive, we are not expected to deliver and it is not how we perceive the digital economy and follow with future challenges in the digital world.”
He welcomed the new mandate from ENISA which has been adopted, along with eIDAS, and said that it is working with stakeholders to put together cyber security and trust in a new perspective. “There is a lot of work to be done, and it is all bits and pieces binding trust together in a digital world,” he said. He concluded by saying that the European Commission will announce its Horizon 2020 strategy soon.
Also speaking in the opening session, at the EEMA and TDL event, was Amardeo Sarma, chairman of TDL, who said that challenges were there for businesses and it was not just about the theft of intellectual property.
