Poland leads EU call for more civilian and military cooperation on cyber

Civil and military cooperation on cybersecurity needs beefing up to confront ongoing threats faced by EU member states, Poland’s Minister of Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski said at the informal meeting of telecom ministers in Warsaw on Wednesday.

“These worlds cannot be apart,” he said, adding that his own country – which is chairing the EU meetings in the first half of this year – is at the frontline of “fighting thousands of cyber threats daily."

“We have more and more attacks against critical infrastructure, and other member states too. We need to invest and exchange information,” Gawkowski added.

The remarks come as EU heads of state are set to discuss, during a special meeting in Brussels on Thursday, a five-point response plan, dubbed "REARM Europe", proposed by the EU Commission earlier this week. The plan aims to mobilise around €800 billion over the next four years, the bulk will come from the 27 national governments increasing their spending on defence and security. 

When asked whether cybersecurity can benefit from this, Gawkowski said that the funds “largely speaking” also affect cyber, “the first stage of the war is hybrid.”

Estonia’s Liisa Pakosta, Minister for Justice and Digital Affairs, said that trust and cooperation between member states needs to be improved.

“We would like to see much more trust, willingness, as in the way we work in the military field. We misunderstand the threat that cyber issues have, we don’t take it as a bombing, but it is that, it is a physical threat.”

Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, said at the joint press conference that the telecom ministers’ meeting comes at a crucial moment.

“We see that member states and the EU