Statement by Bart GROOTHUIS (Renew,NL), rapporteur, following the proposals to revise existing cybersecurity rules and strengthen EU security provisions voted on by the Industry and Energy Committee. To respond to the growing threats posed with digitalisation and the surge in cyber-attacks, the Commission has submitted a proposal to replace the NIS Directive and thereby strengthen the security requirements, address the security of supply chains, streamline reporting obligations, and introduce more stringent supervisory measures and stricter enforcement requirements, including harmonised sanctions across the EU.

Committee on Industry, Research and Energy

statement

fight against cyber attacks (T)

GROOTHUIS, Bart (Renew, NL)

New Cybersecurity legislation: statement by Bart GROOTHUIS (Renew, NL), rapporteur - ITRE Committee

Title: New Cybersecurity legislation: statement by Bart GROOTHUIS (Renew, NL), rapporteur - ITRE Committee

SOUNDBITE (English), Bart GROOTHUIS (Renew, NL), Rapporteur, Well, let me, first of all address this cybersecurity threat to my home country, the Netherlands. cyber crime has doubled to 2019. In 2020, the FBI raised the issue of ransomware criminals. And in 2021 we see another peak. So that's a ransomware pandemic, one might say so. The threat is real, and we see that all around : hospitals, but also energy, water and many other vital parts of our society are being hit by ransomware gangs and by nation state. So we have to do something against them to raise our resilience and raise awareness and do more than we are doing now.

SOUNDBITE (English), Bart GROOTHUIS (Renew, NL), Rapporteur, There's a liability concern that there's a personal appeal we do to CEOs of companies, but also of ministries and other institutions throughout Europe to actually take this very, very serious, more serious than before. And then last but not least, we also enable governments and the private sector and governments all around the world to exchange data better than we did before.

SOUNDBITE (English), Bart GROOTHUIS (Renew, NL), Rapporteur, The improvement between nation states inside member states inside the European Union is very important.We first create a legal basis for that. The GDPR has raised some liability concerns whether we could share the cybersecurity threat intelligence, for example, doesn't contain personal data. Those were questions that are still ongoing in the cybersecurity community, and we make a clear legal basis to make sure that people feel confident, that they share under the right regimes with the right conditions. So in order to protect citizens, to protect companies from new attacks from occurring, it's very important that we create it. On top of that, we also ask governments if they know something about new attacks occuring in future and actually do something about it, not just reactively responding to threats, also proactively engaging to thwart, to hold back and to actually protect the citizens of the European Union.

SOUNDBITE (English), Bart GROOTHUIS (Renew, NL), Rapporteur, What is essential is that we keep your data more safe than we do now. We want Europe to become to be a safe place to work and to live, and that is the main aim of this goal, but also to make sure that businesses run throughout Europe under the same rules, to harmonise all that we have asked from governments and businesses, to harmonise that throughout Europe. The single market requires it and also the consumers and the European citizens will benefit from it.