The European Council has passed a new law to strengthen cyber security

The European Council on Monday (2 December) adopted two bills on cyber security aimed at further strengthening the EU's resilience against cyber threats and cyber solidarity and cooperation.

The two laws are the "Cyber Solidarity Act" and the "Cyber Security Act" amendments, which are part of the EU's cyber security legislative package.

The European Council issued a statement saying that the Cyber Solidarity Act builds the EU's capacity to respond to cyber threats while strengthening cooperation mechanisms. For example, the EU will establish a "cyber security Alert system" consisting of national and cross-border cyber centers to share information, detect and respond to cyber threats. The bill also proposes the establishment of a cyber security emergency response mechanism to improve the EU's emergency response capacity.

Recognizing the growing importance of managed security services in preventing, detecting, responding to and recovering from cybersecurity incidents, the amendments to the Cybersecurity Act will help improve the quality of managed security services and foster trustworthy cybersecurity service providers.

After being signed by the President of the European Council and the President of the European Parliament, the two new laws will be published in the official Journal of the European Union in the coming weeks and enter into force 20 days after publication.