6.9.2022
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
C 342/181 Thursday 17 February 2022
tensions’; welcomes the ‘comprehensive and coordinated’ strategic review of EUNAVFOR ATALANTA, EUTM Somalia, and EUCAP Somalia and their extension, with a view to encompassing all security aspects;
Countering hybrid threats
44.
Condemns the malicious acts committed against Member States, such as hybrid attacks instrumentalising migration; calls on the Union and the Member States to improve their capabilities to identify hybrid threats; insists that the Union and the Member States react firmly and in a coordinated manner against any new malicious, illegal or destabilising cyber-activity by making full use of the instruments available to the EU and in coordination with its partners; calls on Member States to improve national cyber defence capabilities; calls on the Union to work towards the creation of a legal instrument to respond to hybrid threats and to develop a comprehensive cyber-capacity including secure networks, communications and information-sharing, training and exercises, including through PESCO projects, and making good use of the EU cyber-diplomacy toolbox; calls for an urgent revision of the cyber defence policy framework in order to increase the prevention, attribution, deterrence and responsiveness capacity of the Union and its Member States by strengthening their position, situational awareness, tools and procedures; underlines the need for all EU institutions and EU Member States to cooperate at all levels to build a cybersecurity strategy, whose main objective should be to further strengthen resilience, and to develop common, and also better, national, robust civilian and military cyber-capabilities and cooperation in order to respond to lasting security challenges; welcomes therefore the 2021 SOTEU announcement of a European cyber defence policy; welcomes the increased cooperation among Member States on cyber defence in the framework of PESCO, including cyber rapid response teams; recalls that the successful implementation of EU missions and operations is increasingly dependent on uninterrupted access to a secure cyberspace, and thus requires robust and resilient cyber-operational capabilities, as well as adequate responses to attacks against military installations, missions and operations; recognises that, to a certain degree, cyber defence is more effective if it also contains some offensive means and measures, provided that their use is compliant with international law; is concerned about the dependence of the EU and its Member States on foreign tools to guarantee their cybersecurity; stresses the need to foster a cybersecurity culture within European public and private entities, including through the introduction of devoted courses and curricula; notes the important training work carried out by the European Security and Defence College (ESDC) on cyber defence, and welcomes in this respect the establishment of the cyber education, training, evaluation and exercise (ETEE); stresses that ESDC should benefit from structural Union funding in order to be able to enhance its contribution to fostering the EU’s cyber defence skills, especially given the increased need for top level cyber experts; recognises the growing importance of cyber and automated intelligence capabilities; stresses that these are threats to all the Member States and EU institutions; urges all EU institutions and Member States to continue to improve their cyber and automated technologies, and further encourages cooperation on these technological advances; recommends that options to foster the cyber capability-building of our partners should be explored, such as extending the mandate of EU training missions to also comprise cyber defence issues or launching civilian cyber missions; welcomes the imposition of sanctions against Russian, Chinese and North Korean perpetrators of cyber-attacks, including WannaCry, NotPetya and Operation Cloud Hopper;
45.
Calls on the EEAS to create an EU toolkit, in line with the European democracy action plan, intended not only to focus on enhancing Member States’ and stakeholders’ resilience to disinformation, but also to set mandatary requirements for social platforms and to allow citizens to make informed decisions, and also to improve the EU’s ability to strengthen the fight against disinformation and deliberate malicious behaviour, in order to identify attribute, deter, counter and sanction them;
46.
Insists, in view of the evolution of this threat and the necessary adaptation of our institutions, that measures be put in place in the European institutions, including Parliament, to consolidate its internal capacities; stresses the importance of the inter-institutional coordination put in place by the Computer Emergency Response Team for the EU Institutions, bodies and agencies (CERT-EU); urges the European institutions, in particular the Commission, to make the necessary human resources available to strengthen CERT-EU; urges the VP/HR, in this regard, and/or the Member States to increase financial and personnel resources in order to strengthen the EU’s ability to defend itself against cyber-attacks;
47.
Calls for mutual operational assistance between Member States to be enhanced; stresses the importance of carrying out additional exercises based on crisis management scenarios; urges Member States to reach, upon completion of the Strategic Compass, an ambitious common understanding on Articles 42(7) TEU and 222 TFEU, including on the activation of Article 222 TFEU and Article 42(7) TEU in a hypothetical cyberattack scenario; stresses, in this respect, that the conditions for activating Article 42(7) TEU and the modalities of the assistance required have never been clearly defined, and calls for a more operational implementation of this tool;