The Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU has reached a common approach on the Cybersecurity Act

At the end of 2017 the Council of EU stated its ambition to reach a common approach to the Cybersecurity Act by June 2018.

The Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU 2018 has reached a common approach to the proposed Regulation on cybersecurity, thus opening the way for consecutive successful moving up the dossier by the Austrian Presidency of the Council of EU.

Intensive discussions were held under the leadership of Krasimir Simonski, Deputy Chairman of the State e-Government Agency and after conducting more than 20 sessions and discussing eight consecutive compromise proposals, the Horizontal Working Party on Cyber Issues to the Council of EU has come to a decision, which is a compromise on the standpoints and proposals of the Member States. This allowed the Telecommunications Council to adopt a common approach to the proposal at its last meeting.

In September 2017, in the context of the Digital Single Market Strategy, the European Commission adopted and presented to the Council and the European Parliament a proposal for a Regulation on ENISA – the European Union cybersecurity agency, to repeal Regulation (EC) No 526/2013, as well as on the certification of the cybersecurity of the information and communication technologies (Cybersecurity Act). Being part of the so called ‘Cybersecurity Package’, the proposal is aimed at ensuring a higher level of cybersecurity, cyber sustainability and trust in EU, with a view to guaranteeing the proper functioning of the internal market.

The proposed regulation lays down the objectives, tasks and organizational aspects of the EU Cybersecurity Agency. It is foreseen to assign a permanent mandate to ENISA for the purpose of ensuring more efficient support to the efforts for secure cyber space as well as to the European framework for cybersecurity certification of ICT products and services and of the European schemes for cybersecurity certification. Certifications issued under these schemes shall be valid and recognized in all Member States. This is how conditions shall be created for overcoming the fragmentation of the market for ICT products and services in EU, by ensuring a definite level of synchronization of the security standards in the Member States.

This is to remind that at the end of 2017 the Council of EU stated its ambition to reach a common approach to the Cybersecurity Act by June 2018. The Austrian Presidency of the Council of EU, July–December 2018, should start negotiations with the representatives of the European Parliament and the European Commission on the proposed Regulation.