Mr. Juhan Lepassaar:

I will try to provide a short answer. Let me consider preparedness and raising resilience. What we have at the European level in terms of framework is the network information security directive and the Cybersecurity Act. There is a lot of collaboration taking place among the member states in the NIS Cooperation Group, which is a group of experts that deals with exchanging best practices when it comes to implementing the NIS directive in different sectors. The good work they have done is something we should also appreciate.

The second level is operational response and co-ordination. We have two levels. First, we have the technical level, which is the Computer Security Incident Response Teams, CSIRTs, network, which are national CSIRTs that collaborate in a cross-border manner. This is a network that was instrumental during the attack against the Irish health sector providers. It enabled the Irish authorities to share information so that all other member states were knowledgeable about what was happening and shared the technical details about it so that everybody was aware of the attack. Also, they could rely on the network to extract expertise and member states could, in practice, require assistance from experts.

Second, there is the operational level which is relatively new. It is built on the blueprint, which is a political framework that foresees co-ordination and collaboration between the heads of the EU cybersecurity agencies. This is the part where the network information security directive really institutionalises this kind of collaboration. Of course there is a diplomatic toolbox at EU level to co-ordinate a potential joint response by member states, where it is non-EU actors, but when it necessary and required. At EU level we seem to have all the boxes but now the question is to make them more resilient, more stronger and more effective.