Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the security of information systems is a major concern of today and a subject of discussion in modern and vulnerable societies. Power supply networks, water supply and sewage, traffic control, hospitals – everything can be thrown into chaos any time, any place. The Bastel virus this autumn was perhaps the first where business lay behind the destruction it caused. The hackers or crackers used it to aid a shady business, chiefly pornography, one presumes. Stealing sensitive information on ordinary people is also obviously a crime, when you think about it. Various sorts of violation of people’s privacy can happen on an absolutely massive scale. This sort of thing has to be tackled. Its lack of security is becoming more and more a barrier to the development of the networked society. Last year 75% of European companies had no information security strategy. Less than 2% of investment in information technology is put into information security. In two companies out of every three information security is as yet not considered a strategic issue. The Data Protection Act should have entered into force in the Member States in October. Under this law unsolicited email cannot be sent without the specific consent of the receiver. Spam accounts for more than half of all email, and, for many, more than 90%, as is the case too with many of us in this House. The credibility and reliability of email are now being wrecked. We voted on this subject in this House last year. At the time almost half did not regard spam as a problem. They opposed this idea of getting someone’s permission first. Now that will not be enough either. Now the operators will also have to clean up content. That will result in problems for the freedom of personal communication. Security clearance is very much on the increase as our lives become more and more involved in networks and communications. With broadband we are on line the whole time. The wireless Internet will be the obvious hunting ground of the troublemaker. It will be a nuisance for all: private individuals, companies and society. The problem over security is made worse by the fact that in a complex environment many components and partial systems have to function together. The human factor is also a risk. Information security thus affects everyone everywhere. Information security is a political question, and that is why we have to resolve it. That is why, moreover, we are in an exceptional hurry here to create this agency for Europe, the European Network and Information Security Agency. Without security the Lisbon objectives will not be implemented. Information insecurity would lead us into an age of piracy. Three types of measure are in progress. We have enacted laws relating to electronic communications and data protection. The Commission is drafting principles for judging and sentencing cybercrime and looking at ways of improving information security, and one of these ways is ENISA. I want to thank my colleagues, the Council and the Commission for their excellent levels of cooperation. It shows how we have now understood what this situation means. ENISA will be a centre of excellence that coordinates, analyses and gives advice. It will work very closely with the public and private sector. The Agency will promote the development of risk assessment and risk management methods. International cooperation will be indispensable. The Agency must be located somewhere where there are already viable top information technology communications systems, including wireless. The world’s top operations centres must be located there and we must be able to find Europe’s most highly skilled people there easily. As rapporteur I have worked in favour of a compromise, which is that the Management Board should have representation from all Member States. At the same time it will not get involved in day-to-day work, which will be the domain of the Executive Director, the staff, the Advisory Board and the working groups. There is no doubt that a large Management Board will be a necessary forum of cooperation and a factor in creating direction. Voting rules are slightly problematic. We can return to them in a few years’ time. The Agency will work for the benefit of the Member States, where levels of information security vary considerably. The role of companies in our compromise is a strong one, thanks to Mr van Velzen, because they of course possess most of the networks and expertise. I also wish to thank Mrs Mann, who has also keenly promoted this move. The compromise package has been adopted by the committee, the Council and the Commission. I expect that we will recognise our responsibilities and vote in its favour tomorrow. It will lead to better security, to employment and to greater development.

Political group: PSE